Institutional Rights
Retention Policy for Research
Publications

Prepared by:Open Research Action Group (ORAG)

Approved by:

University Senate on the recommendation of the University Research& Knowledge Exchange Committee (RKEC).

Route to approval:

Recommended for onward consideration and approval by:•••Open Research Group (ORG) by circulation in June 2023.
Research Sub-Committee (RSC) on 7 November 2023.
RKEC on 19 September 2023.

Date of approval:

Approved by University Senate on 15 November 2023.

Date effective:

1 January 2024.

Version number:

1.0

Review process:To be reviewed as and when required by the ORAG.

Related policies

Sector/Funder:

and procedures:

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Open Access Policy (Feb 2023)
REF 2021: Overview of open access policy and guidance (Nov 2019)
Coalition S
University of Strathclyde:
Intellectual Property and Commercialisation Policy (March 2023)
Code of Practice for Postgraduate Research Students (Sept 2023)
Approach to Open Access (informal policy)
Rights Retention Strategy
Research Publications Guidance (Feb 2023)
Research Data Management and Sharing Policy (March 2023)
Research Code of Practice (March 2023)

Introduction
1.

This policy recognises that it is not necessary for an author to sign over their copyright or grant an exclusive
licence to a publisher in order for their scholarly work to be published or disseminated. This policy sets out
the steps authors should take to retain control over their published research to enable full Open Access.

2.

When publishing journal articles and other research outputs, authors at the University of Strathclyde havetraditionally signed a copyright transfer agreement which assigns their copyright to academic publishers.
This has resulted in many research publications being under partial or complete ownership of the academic
publishers. Reuse of the published work is subsequently controlled by the publishers while authors retain
certain limited rights about when, where, how and with whom their output can be shared. This approach isincreasingly divergent from the principles of Open Research and funder expectations, including
requirements for the Research Excellence Framework (REF).

3.

The University of Strathclyde is committed to the values, principles and culture of Open Research, as set
out in our Open Research Statement. The term Open Research covers Open Access approaches toresearch outputs and data through open research platforms, tools and services. It includes the drive forgreater collaboration and transparency within the research lifecycle with the aim to deliver improved
research quality and impact with greater engagement with the public. Not retaining the copyright ofpublications may diminish the extent to which a member of staff or postgraduate research student can maketheir work open.

4.

To address the conflict between promoting Open Research and assigning partial or complete ownership ofwork to a publisher, this policy supports authors to retain rights to their work to allow them to increase thevisibility of all their research outputs and comply with funding body requirements for Open Access.

5.

The purpose of this policy is to:• support authors to retain the copyright to their publications and comply with funder requirements; and• enable the University to disseminate its research and scholarship as widely as possible, whilst enabling
its authors to publish their articles in a journal venue of their choice.

6.

Questions relating to this policy should be directed to the University’s Open Access team at
openaccess@strath.ac.uk.

Scope
7.

This policy applies to all authors or co-authors who are affiliated with the University of Strathclyde (hereafter‘authors’). This includes postgraduate research students, subject to requirements of section 4.5 of theUniversity’s Intellectual Property and Commercialisation Policy.1

8.

This policy applies to all articles, authored or co-authored while the person is a member of staff or student
at Strathclyde, including conference proceedings (with an ISSN) and any third-party content where rights inthat content have been secured. Any articles submitted for publication before the date of adoption of thispolicy are exempt.

9.

This policy applies to all Strathclyde articles regardless of whether they are published Gold Open Access ornot. This is an extension of applicable funders’ Open Access policies, in which the Rights Retention
mechanism only applies when there is no way to make an article Gold Open Access, either by paying anArticle Processing Charge (APC) or via the University’s Read and Publish deals. To promote Open
Research, Strathclyde has chosen to apply this this Institutional Rights Retention Policy to all journal articles
and conference papers.

10. This policy only applies to first copyright (the right to control use which automatically arises when anindividual or collective authors a work) in authored research publications. It does not extend to otherintellectual property rights in research which are covered by the University’s Intellectual Property andCommercialisation Policy.
11. This policy does not apply to monographs, books, book chapters, edited collections or other research
outputs although the University strongly encourages authors to make them as openly available as possible.
12. This policy does not apply to preprints. A preprint is a version of an article that precedes formal peer view
and publication in an academic journal.

1 See also Clauses 27-34 Code of Practice for Postgraduate Research Students.

1Policy requirements
13. In order to retain copyright of publications, authors should include specific wording in the acknowledgements
section of the manuscript, which states that they will apply a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licenceto the full-text accepted manuscript once the submission is accepted by the journal. This wording is:‘For the purpose of open access, the author(s) has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)
licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.’
This wording allows the uploading of the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in Pure (the University’sResearch Information Management System) and its being made openly available under no embargo uponits first online release by the journal. Inclusion of the statement guarantees the immediate openness of thepeer-reviewed text under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence, thereby guaranteeing that therequirements of the UKRI Open Access Policy and other funders can be met.
14. Upon acceptance for publication, each author with a responsibility for the research agrees to grant theUniversity a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide licence to make the accepted manuscript of each articlepublicly available under the terms of a CC BY licence. The licence is granted to the University by uploadinga copy of the full-text accepted manuscript in Pure, whereupon the manuscript will be deposited in theStrathprints institutional repository to satisfy the technical, compliance, and discovery requirements ofrelevant open access policies.
15. The University will make the full-text of the AAM publicly available on the date of first online publication(or the conference end date for conference proceedings) under a CC BY licence.
16. The University recognises that there may be cases, and outside of an individual’s control, where it is notpossible to follow all aspects of this policy. Examples include:•An alternative Creative Commons licence may be used on the deposited AAM where a funder allows it,or if there is no external funder mandate or REF requirement. The author must inform the Open Accessteam of their preference for an alternative licence.

•If removal of third-party content would make the AAM unsuitable for sharing, an exception will apply andthe AAM will be retained as ‘closed’ access in Pure and Strathprints.

•If an existing contract with a publisher has been signed that prevents compliance with this policy, an optout may be considered. Potential alternatives may be available, including negotiating with publishers on
amending copyright licences. Appropriate support will be provided if/where needed by the University’s
Copyright Officer•

Institutional authors should bring the need to meet the Institutional Rights Retention Policy requirements
to the attention of their co-authors as early as possible in the publishing cycle. If full compliance turns out
not to be feasible, there may be an option to apply an opt-out.

In such cases, it will be permissible for authors to voluntarily opt out of the requirement for immediate open
access upon publication, or the assignation of a CC BY licence. This, however, may cause the research
publication to be non-compliant with funder policies or ineligible for future REF exercises. To opt out, authors
must contact the Open Access team at openaccess@strath.ac.uk.

Related policies and guidance
17. This policy aligns with clause 4.5 of the University’s Intellectual Property and Commercialisation Policy whichstates that authors own the copyright to their scholarly works and grant the University a perpetual androyalty-free licence to use such Scholarly Rights for non-commercial teaching, research and academic
purposes.
18. This policy should be read in conjunction with the following University policies and guidelines:
••
••••
•
•

Intellectual Property and Commercialisation Policy
Open Research Statement
Approach to Open Access (informal policy)
Rights Retention Strategy
Research Publications Guidance
Research Data Management and Sharing Policy
Research Code of Practice.
Code of Practice for Postgraduate Research Students.
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