Funding councils extend ‘flexible’ open access ahead of REF 2021

The four UK higher education funding bodies have decided to extend for a further year the initial flexibility in their open-access policy for the Research Excellence Framework 2021.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England, on behalf of all of the funding bodies, released an updated version of their policy for open access in the next Research Excellence Framework on 15 November.

According to the amended policy, the funders will continue to require that to be eligible for submission to the REF, outputs must be deposited within three months of being accepted for publication in a journal or other platform. However, this requirement will now apply to outputs accepted for publication after 1 April 2018.