The REF Open Access Policy requires the following outputs to be made open access to be eligible for inclusion in the submission to REF 2029:
Journal articles and conference proceedings papers that are
- Published in a publication with an ISSN and are
- Published from 1 January 2021.
Research England has updated the REF Open Access Policy, with the main changes taking effect from 1 January 2026.
A summary of the key details of the REF Open Access Policy is below:
Article published 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2025
- Deposit output in a repository as soon after the date of acceptance as possible and no later than three months after this date.
- Publisher embargo requirement on the deposited output can be up to 12 months for science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine subjects and 24 months for humanities, arts and social science subjects.
- An output that is published open access with an open licence at the time of first publication also meets the policy requirements.
Article published from 1 January 2026
- Deposit output in a repository within 3 months of publication.
- Publisher embargo requirement on the deposited output can be up to 6 months for science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine subjects and 12 months for humanities, arts and social science subjects.
- Output to be shared as openly as possible, with a strong preference for CC BY licence, but other Creative Commons licences and equivalent are also permitted.
- An output that is published open access with an open licence at the time of first publication also meets the policy requirements.
Complying with the REF Open Access Policy
Complying with the Policy is easy - all you need to do, both before and after the policy change, is:
1. At submission inform co-authors of the institutional Self-Archiving Policy.
2. Upload author accepted manuscript at acceptance: As soon as your journal article or conference proceeding is accepted for publication, upload the manuscript to Elements and provide the date of acceptance.
3. Follow the advice of the Open Access Team: The team will advise you on the best route to open access to meet REF and funder requirements and if any funding or journal agreement is in place to meet open access costs.
Please upload your accepted manuscript, even if time has elapsed. We may be able to find a way to make your paper compliant.
What happens after you upload your accepted manuscript
We will deposit your paper in the University's repository, Apollo, once you upload it. At publication your manuscript will be publicly available under an open licence. There may be cases where it is not possible to deposit or deposit with an open licence, for example, if the publisher hasn't been informed about the University's Self-Archiving Policy and does not allow an open access deposit. If this is the case, a member of the Open Access Team will discuss this with you.
Publishing Open Access or in a Preprint Server?
You should still deposit your accepted manuscript at acceptance.
This helps the University log, report and audit REF open access compliance. We can also provide timely support and advice.
REF Support
We are available to provide REF briefings to departments. The briefings can be single sessions or as part of existing meetings such as departmental meetings.
REF open access reports are available in the reporting hub in Elements. The reports summarise the information that Elements holds on research outputs. They also provide a compliance indicator and flag required actions. There is a guide on the reports on the Research Information SharePoint.
You can also find more information about REF on the University of Cambridge REF2029 SharePoint Site.
Please contact us if you have any questions about REF or the REF reports, or to arrange a REF briefing.