Understanding open access

Open access means making research publications freely available online. It ensures that your work reaches the widest possible audience, and that it can be used and shared easily.

What is open access?

The goal of open access is to make research outputs openly available online without restriction to all readers, free from the barriers imposed by subscription access. Open access is now required by many research funders and for Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2029. UCL's Open Access Team supports authors with both types of open access, Green and Gold.

MediaCentral Widget Placeholderhttps://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/B8hD43hJ

Green open access

Green open access (or self-archiving) means making research freely available through an open access repository. Publishers usually permit this for the final accepted manuscript, often after an embargo period (e.g. 12 or 18 months after publication). Research funders and the REF require immediate open access, or a shorter maximum embargo, and may stipulate a Creative Commons licence.

UCL's Publications Policy allows UCL staff to make the accepted manuscripts of scholarly articles open access on publication. Under the policy, the accepted manuscript will be made open access without an embargo in UCL Discovery, UCL's open access repository, under the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY), when the staff member uploads them to UCL’s Research Publications Service (RPS). See the UCL Publications Policy support pages for more information and actions for authors.

Some book publishers permit Green open access, with restrictions. Examples include:

Bloomsbury
Brill (multi-authored books and encyclopedias)
Cambridge University Press
Emerald
Hart
Oxford University Press
Routledge/Taylor & Francis
Sage
Springer

If your book publisher does not allow Green open access as standard, you can ask them to amend your contract. For information on asserting your right to make longform outputs open access on publication, see the UCL Publications Policy FAQs.

Gold open access

Gold open access means making the final version of a publication freely available and reusable on the publisher's website, immediately on publication, usually under a Creative Commons licence. Gold open access means either publishing with a fully open access publisher (e.g. PLOS, UCL Press), usually for a fee, or paying to make research open access with a subscription journal/traditional book publisher. If the work is funded, then the funder may require a particular Creative Commons licence - typically CC BY. UCL's Open Access Team can advise you on whether Gold funds are available for your publication, and arrange for payment to be made.

Benefits of open access

In addition to institutional and funder mandates, making your research open access has many wider benefits:

Compliant with grant rules.
More exposure for your work.
Higher citation rates.
Your research can influence policy.
Researchers in developing countries can see your work.
The public can access your findings.
Practitioners can apply your findings.
Taxpayers get value for money.