University of Warwick Open Access Policy
The University of Warwick Open Access Policy
This information sets out the University’s framework for ensuring that scholarly outputs authored by University researchers, staff and students are made Open Access (OA), where applicable.
This is the third iteration of the policy and came into force on 1 October 2025.
Guidance on complying with the rights retention portion of the policy and information on which publishers have been contacted can be found here.
A downloadable PDF version of the policy is also available.
1. Purpose
1.1 As a leading research institution, The University of Warwick highly values the research carried out under its aegis, whether produced alone or in collaboration with others.
1.2 The University is committed to disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible to contribute to society and academic advancement. It aligns with the University’s research strategy, core values, funding body requirements, and the public need that scholarly research outputs from publicly funded research should be made freely available.
1.3 To this end, the University favours open access by means of the green, or repository, route now and for the foreseeable future, except in those cases where the research funder may require the gold route and has made provision for any requisite charges.
1.4 In addition, the University recognises that scholarly outputs resulting from this research are key assets and should be recorded and managed by the University to benefit the University, its researchers, and the global community most.
1.5 The University of Warwick has implemented this policy to support researchers in making their scholarly outputs open access and taking advantage of the benefits of this for their research impact and profile. To ensure researchers are fully supported while complying with this policy, the University, through IDG, will provide mechanisms and infrastructure to achieve this, ensuring a straightforward deposit process and clear statements on rights and reuse for end users.
2. Scope
2.1 This policy applies to all scholarly outputs authored or co-authored while affiliated with the University of Warwick. This includes journal articles, conference papers, reports, books, book sections and chapters, patents, and working and discussion papers.
2.2 Any author and/or co-authors who are staff members or postgraduate research students at the University of Warwick are subject to this policy's conditions. Other students at the University of Warwick who are publishing academic research are encouraged to comply with this policy’s conditions.
2.3 The University’s institutional repository must be updated with the details of all research outputs as soon as possible after the date of acceptance and no later than three months after the date of first online publication.
3. Responsibilities
| Role |
Responsible for |
| University of Warwick |
Support the academic freedom of researchers to submit their work to the publication of their choice and support researchers to consider how best to make their work visible and accessible, including how best to enable the use of their work. Undertake advocacy and collaboration with publishers and other bodies, making efforts to influence the policies and practices of these groups, where possible, in support of this policy and the Warwick research community. |
| University of Warwick authors |
Update WRAP with details of their scholarly outputs and upload their authors’ accepted manuscripts to be made open access. Following section 4.3 of this policy and using rights retention statements wherever necessary and communicating with Library services when this is not possible. |
| IDG |
Provide and maintain University infrastructure to record details of scholarly outputs, track their compliance and make uploaded files open access in a persistent and identifiable fashion following international best practice. Ensure the long-term preservation of publications in the repository and maintain the repository accordingly. |
| Library |
As part of IDG, provide a central open access service that helps authors comply with relevant OA requirements, advises on how individual journals meet the requirements of the various research funders, where appropriate and actively works to reduce the administrative burden of OA policies on academics. Assist researchers in depositing their publications into the institutional repository promptly, following funders’ requirements, and respecting the copyright terms and conditions. The Library team will also update and curate the records of the papers in the repository, managing any embargo periods as appropriate. Record papers' compliance with funder policies, including the REF 2029 Open Access policy, and apply exceptions to the policy where necessary for papers submitted through the institutional repository. The Library team will ensure compliance if the paper is submitted through these services within the timeframe requirements imposed by the funders’ policies. Optimise publishing options available to researchers by supporting and contributing to the negotiation of national agreements with publishers and signing up to these if they are deemed cost-effective and in the researchers’ and the University’s interest. Advocate for OA to the academic community and communicate with them the services offered by the University supporting researchers to adopt OA and access the benefits for their research and personal profile. Manage any grants awarded to the University to support open access effectively and responsibly. As noted above, the University recommends green OA as the most cost-effective way to achieve greater public access to scholarly outputs. Publication via the Gold open access route is supported through funds provided to the University by research funders for open access and by internal funds. Review this policy's effectiveness, including internally reporting on compliance with funder mandates. |
| RACI MATRIX |
|
| Responsible |
Open Research Manager, Library |
| Accountable |
University Librarian |
| Consult |
Open Research Group Faculty Boards University Research Committee University Senate |
| Inform |
Board of Graduate Studies Faculty Research Committees Head of Department Departmental Directors of Research Research and Impact Services Warwick’s academic and postgraduate research community Research Enablers |
4. Policy Statement
4.1. University of Warwick authors must ensure their list of scholarly outputs, including journal articles, conference papers, reports, books, book sections and chapters, patents and working and discussion papers, is updated with the University’s institutional repository as soon as possible, no later than three months after the date of publication.
4.2. This information should include links to relevant datasets, other research materials (where appropriate), and research funding grant details (where applicable).
4.3. Rights Retention Statement
4.3.1. Under the terms of Regulation 28, the University confirms that staff members own the copyright of their scholarly works (Reg. 28 4a), and each staff member agrees to grant the University of Warwick a “non-exclusive, royalty-free right” (Reg. 28 4b) to use their scholarly works in perpetuity.
4.3.2. Upon acceptance of publication, staff members agree to grant the University a non‐exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide licence to make manuscripts of their scholarly articles publicly available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.
4.3.3. Once the author’s accepted version of the article has been submitted to the University’s institutional repository following the policy above, the metadata will be made available immediately, and the text of the article will be made available from the date of publication under the terms of a Creative Commons Licence.
4.3.4. Whilst the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0 or newer) licence is strongly encouraged, the University recognises 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.
4.3.5. The University recognises that there may be situations out of a staff member’s control where it may not be possible to follow this policy. In this case, staff may voluntarily opt out of the requirement for immediate open access upon publication or the assignment of a CC BY licence.
4.3.6. Appendix 2 provides further guidance on complying with the Institutional Rights Retention Policy (IRRP) and opting out if necessary.
4.4. To meet the requirements of open access:
4.4.1. For all journal articles and conference papers, authors must include the rights retention statement (Appendix 2) in any submitted manuscript and any covering letter. Upon article acceptance, authors must deposit a digital copy of the accepted manuscript (AAM) with the institutional repository, as soon as possible after the date of acceptance and no later than 3 months after the date of publication.
4.4.2. For all other types of scholarly output, researchers are encouraged to deposit full versions with the University’s institutional repository as soon as possible after the date of acceptance. This includes, but is not limited to, monographs, books, book chapters, reports, working papers, post-publication corrections and updates, video and audio representations. Where deposited, they will be made open access, wherever possible, following publisher policies and/or other contractual requirements.
4.4.3. Ensure that their publication venue complies with their funders’ requirements. Researchers are encouraged to contact the Library for advice or use the Jisc Open Policy Finder service.
4.4.4. Ensure their papers are published with the correct licence according to their funders’ requirements, where appropriate.
4.4.5. Engage with the information, guidance and training the University offers on OA issues.
4.4.6. Where permitted, ensure that open access publication costs are budgeted for in grants and safeguard this money within the project budget. Researchers are encouraged to contact the Library or their research funder for advice.
4.5. Research students are required to submit an electronic copy of their thesis following examination to be made available in the University’s institutional repository, following the instructions laid out in the Guide to Examinations for Higher Degrees by Research.
4.6. These responsibilities apply regardless of whether the Warwick researcher is the corresponding author or a co-author. However, a scholarly output must be deposited in the University’s institutional repository only once if it has more than one Warwick author.
4.7. To optimise personal and institutional impact from their publications, authors should follow the guidelines for publications as described in the University’s Publication Protocol (Appendix 1)
5. Implementation/Communication/Training
5.1. As this policy applies to all members of academic staff and postgraduate research students. Once the policy has been approved, the Open Research Team in the Library will email the final policy document to all academic departments. In addition, the revised policy will be communicated to Warwick’s researchers through University channels, including internal emails and websites, and a promotional campaign.
5.2. The Library will offer information and training sessions for departments on demand, as well as drop-in sessions, informal discussions and the option for individuals to book an individual consultation on any aspect of the open access policy or using the rights retention policy. In addition, the Library’s Research Support webpages will host the policy and associated guidance documents.
5.3. The Library team offers training on depositing to the University’s institutional repository. In the event of any change to the process, this training will be updated and advertised to departments.
5.4. Deposit of the author’s accepted manuscripts to the University’s institutional repository will be through the Library as described on the Library website.
6. Associated Documents
- Regulation 28
- Research Data Management Policy
- Research Code of Practice
- Guide to examinations for higher degrees by research
7. Appendices
Appendix 1. - Definitions
| Author’s Accepted Manuscript | Accepted author’s manuscript (AAM) also known as the author’s version, ‘clean’ version, post-print or author’s final manuscript. The version of an article after any peer-review changes have been made but before copy editing and formatting by the publisher. |
| Gold Open Access | Open access at the time of publication. The final publisher’s version is Open Access via the journal’s website without any embargo period. Gold OA can be considered to be 'born Open Access'. Fully Open Access journals sometimes (but not always) charge a fee for publication. |
| Green Open Access | Making a version of work (usually an AAM) available in an Open Access repository, for example, an institutional repository. This is usually allowed within the standard copyright terms of a journal and is not associated with any additional cost. Publishers may apply an embargo period to manuscripts in a repository. |
| Hybrid journals | A subscription journal where individual articles can be published Open Access on the payment of an article processing charge (APC). Some publishers recognise the extra cost burden on institutions with hybrid journals by offering ‘offset’ discounts. |
| Institutional Repository | An institutional repository (IR) is an online archive for collecting, preserving, and disseminating digital copies of an institution's scholarly output, particularly a research institution. |
| Monographs | A monograph is a specialist work of writing (in contrast to reference works or textbooks) on a single subject or an aspect of a subject, presented at length and usually by a single author. |
| Open Access | In the broadest sense this means the output is freely available online. This can be achieved through either green or gold Open Access routes. Benefits from OA to research include the increased global profile of UK researchers and institutions in a competitive environment. |
| Open Access block grant | An annual sum of money received by the University from a funder specifically to pay for OA costs. More details on block grants. |
| Open Access Journal | Open Access journals are journals in which all the articles are available Open Access. There is no cost to the reader. These journals are either supported by learned societies, professional organisations or institutions, where there is no cost to the author, or through article processing charges which are, in many cases, met by funder grants. |
| Research England | Research England is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). It oversees developing and implementing the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in partnership with the UK higher education funding bodies. See ‘REF 2029 Open Access Policy’ |
| REF 2029 Open Access Policy | Research England and the three other UK HE funding bodies believe that the scholarly outputs of research should be as widely accessible as possible. For this reason, a policy was introduced for open access and eligibility for REF 2021 and revised for REF 2029. The policy states that, to be eligible for submission to the next REF, any journal article or conference paper accepted on or after 1 April 2026 must have been deposited in a repository within 3 months of publication and comply with other requirements. More REF 2029 open access policy details. |
| UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) | The strategic partnership of the research funding bodies which operate as part of UK Research and Innovation. The funding bodies are:
|
| WRAP |
WRAP is the University of Warwick’s current institutional repository (IR). It includes a platform that provides an open-access showcase for scholarly outputs from research undertaken by the University of Warwick research community and a suite of services that assist researchers in depositing their work and making it open access. |
Appendix 2 – University of Warwick Publication protocol
The Publication Protocol aims to help you meet funder requirements and increase the benefits you gain from your work, for example through ensuring the accuracy of citations others make to your publications and other scholarly outputs.
It is important that you follow the affiliation and address formats described here in order that you, your funders and the University of Warwick are properly associated with your work.
Affiliation to the University of Warwick:
As an employee of the University or affiliate with honorary status, or publicly-funded research student, when publishing journal articles and other works associated with research undertaken at the University, you should declare your institution to be the "University of Warwick". Please do not use any other variations. You may also wish to declare affiliation to one of the University of Warwick’s Schools, Departments or Research Centres but please ensure that the University of Warwick is named as your primary institutional affiliation.
Address details:
When completing the University of Warwick address details, always use the format:
University of Warwick
Coventry
CV4 7AL
United Kingdom
Note that although your postal address at the University might include different details or an alternative postcode, it is this address that should be used in association with your publication. This helps others identify your work correctly, for example, when compiling citation listings and assists in automated data transfer processes.
Funding details:
You should ensure that your funder’s name and grant number are supplied to the publisher of your work according to your funder’s expectations and that these details are correctly recorded in WRAP.
Underlying research materials:
You should include a statement on how any underlying research materials – such as data, samples or models – can be accessed. See Research Data Management Policy.