University open access policies

The policies below apply to the work that you produce whilst at the University of Exeter. Policies relating to Research Data Management and open data can be found on this page.

Institutional open access policy

The University of Exeter Open Access Policy (revised January 2025):

The University of Exeter supports the principles of open access where legally, commercially and ethically appropriate. The scope of these principles applies to all research conducted at the University, regardless of funding source.

all staff must make in-scope outputs open access by uploading via Symplectic to the institutional repository ORE
in-scope outputs are those that need to be deposited in ORE to comply with funder or REF open access policy
to ensure compliance with REF open access policy, when publishing peer-reviewed journal articles (including reviews and conference papers) that are accepted for publication in a journal, conference proceedings (with an ISSN) or publishing platform, deposit to ORE upon (within 3 months of) acceptance
publishing with immediate open access and a Creative Commons licence on the publisher website is compliant with REF open access policy, you do not need to also upload to ORE
all peer-reviewed outputs arising from EU funding including ERC, Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe must be deposited in a repository (including when you publish open access on the publisher website)

You do not need to deposit to ORE if your output already complies with funder or REF policy by another route, including if you publish open access with a Creative Commons licence on the publisher website, or if it is already deposited in another repository.

Authors of other output types such as monographs or book chapters are encouraged to pursue open access publication, where possible and practical

researchers must comply with their funder open access policy (if applicable)
funds are available to publish in open access venues (subject to availability); contact the Open Research team upon submission to apply
researchers are encouraged to make use of Transformative Agreements that the Library has signed with publishers, which enable open access publishing without publishing fees as it has already been paid for

University of Exeter Rights Retention Policy

The University of Exeter Rights Retention policy applies to:

authors and co-authors who are Staff or Postgraduate Research Students (PGRs) at the University of Exeter
journal articles or conference proceedings with an ISSN that are authored or co-authored whilst affiliated with University of Exeter
first submitted for publication from 1st January 2024

Under the policy:

The University waives ownership of copyright of and acknowledges that members of staff own the copyright to, scholarly works they create, such as academic journal articles, text books, conference papers and related presentations/aide memoires for personal use, see the University Intellectual Property (IP) policy.
In exchange for waiving ownership of copyright, authors grant the University a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free licence to make manuscripts of their scholarly articles publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence or a similar licence terms
Authors apply a CC-BY licence to the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) upon submission, giving precedence over any subsequent publisher's licensing agreement.

How to comply:

Include the following wording in all article submissions, in the manuscript and any covering letter: “For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission"
An alternative statement with the same intended outcome can be used if required by specific funders.
Inform your co-authors about the University's Rights Retention policy and agree on a licence before submission.
Whilst CC-BY is strongly encouraged, the University recognizes the need for different licences based on funder requirements, such as CC BY NC/ND or the Open Government Licence for research subject to Crown copyright.
After acceptance, upload the accepted manuscript (containing the Rights Retention statement) via Symplectic to ORE.

Contacting publishers:

The Library contacted publishers on 1st May 2024 to inform them of the Institutional Rights Retention policy, applying a CC BY licence to the accepted manuscript version of all articles with a University of Exeter author. If you first submitted after this date to a journal published by a publisher that we contacted, this means your paper is covered for Rights Retention even if the Rights Retention statement was not included at submission, and your accepted manuscript will be made immediately open access in ORE with a CC BY licence. Please get in touch if you would like us to send a notification to a publisher that has not already been contacted.

Opt Out:

The University recognizes that complex situations may arise where compliance with the policy is challenging. In such cases, staff members can voluntarily opt out of the requirement for immediate open access or the assignment of a CC BY licence in respect of a specific submission. Contact the Open Research team at submission if you need to opt out, then indicate the opt out status for your article when you upload in Symplectic at acceptance. Opt outs must be confirmed at the latest when you upload via Symplectic to ORE; if we have not been notified of your wish to opt out, the article may be made immediately open access in ORE under the CC BY licence, which is irrevocable.

View the Rights Retention Policy checklist for researchers.

View the Rights Retention Policy FAQs.

Policy for managing central open access funds

The University of Exeter policy for managing central open access funds

applies from 01 January 2021
applies to centrally administered open access funds: UKRI, Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation and Institutional open access fund
aligns our strategy with Plan S and Wellcome Trust open access policy 2021

Funds will be prioritised to support:

OA publishing fees where these are essential to publication e.g. fully open access journals
Transformative Agreements with publishers

For more details, view the Central open access funds policy and FAQ

Eligibility criteria for open access funds and publisher agreements

Eligibility criteria: open access funds and publisher agreements

The eligibility criteria below for accessing the University's central open access funds and publisher agreements have been approved by the Research and Impact Executive Committee (RIEC), revisions to the criteria were recently approved and apply from 1st April 2026.

To apply to the funds or publisher agreements, corresponding author must fall into one of the following categories of eligible author:

currently employed members of staff
students of the University (PGR, PGT and UG) during their course and for 2 years after completion, when publishing research that was conducted at the University of Exeter
clinicians (with University of Exeter Associate status)
researchers funded through the Council for At Risk Academics (with University of Exeter Associate status)

Additionally, all requests to the institutional open access fund must include a CREDIT Attribution statement, outlining the involvement in the research of all authors and we recommend that this is included in the article as well.

Affiliation will be verified at the point of approving an open access request, which is usually at submission to a full open access journal and upon acceptance to a hybrid journal. When publishing through agreements, in the case of multiple corresponding authors, some publishers define which corresponding author must be affiliated and we abide by the publisher definition.

Open Research Exeter (ORE) repository policy

ORE policy

This document is the policy for Open Research Exeter (ORE), the institutional repository of the University of Exeter: ORE policy.