Open Access for REF 2029

These pages are designed to help UCL researchers understand the REF Open Access policy and explain what action is needed to make papers REF-eligible.

Upload your manuscript to RPS

REF 2029 - August 2024 update

After consulting on proposed open access requirements for REF 2029, which include significant changes and adjustments to the current policy, the higher education funding bodies have made the following decisions:

the new policy for journal articles and proceedings will be effective from 1 January 2026 at the earliest
there will not be an open access requirement for monographs, book chapters and edited collections submitted to REF 2029.

UCL will update guidance to authors when the final policy is announced in autumn/winter 2024. The current REF open access policy continues to apply to articles and conference papers: authors should continue to upload their accepted manuscripts according to the guidance below.

There is an open access policy for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise. The REF assesses the quality of research in UK Higher Education Institutions and informs the allocation of funding for research.

To be eligible for submission to the REF, UCL authors should upload their final accepted manuscripts of articles and conference proceedings to UCL's Research Publications Service (RPS) on or before the first online publication date. See our What do I need to do? page for more on complying with the policy.

The final accepted manuscript means the final author version after peer review, but before the publisher’s typesetting or copy-editing (often a Word document). Papers do not need to be published Gold open access in order to comply with the REF Open Access Policy.

UCL researchers should maintain their publications list in RPS, including regularly claiming publications. This is important because RPS sends authors regular email reminders listing papers not yet uploaded, but these can only sent for papers that are already claimed. See our guides to using RPS.

Although the REF policy specifically applies to articles and conference proceedings, UCL's policy is that outputs of all types should be uploaded to RPS, including books and book chapters.

See our FAQ or contact us for help with topics such as:

My paper is free to view on the publisher site; isn’t that open access?
I don’t have the accepted manuscript and can’t get it.
My paper is available through another repository or preprint server.
My paper was published Gold open access. Do I still need to upload the manuscript?