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University of Leeds Publications Policy

The University of Leeds produces research of world-class quality. In alignment with our Research Culture statement we are committed to ensuring that the outputs of our research are freely accessible to maximise the potential for economic, social and cultural impact.  Some researchers and many outside the academic community have not traditionally had immediate access to the outputs of our research because of the restrictions placed by publishers on access to subscription-based scholarly journals. We share the commitment of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Coalition S, Wellcome and other external funders to enable immediate access to the outputs of publicly funded research for all.   

This policy applies, from January 2023, to all research outputs produced by postgraduate researchers and research staff, unless specific instruction is provided. While particular emphasis is placed on the deposit of peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews and conference papers, the deposit of other outputs, e.g. monographs is also encouraged, where possible, to fully reflect a researcher’s activity, supporting broader discussion of their contribution to their field and ensuring a permanent, preserved account of institutional output. The University’s Publications Database and Institutional Repository provide the mechanism for recording details of all outputs and the means for making full versions easily available online.  

The rationale and benefits for the policy are outlined in the sections below.  Author Requirements are listed with further guidance available from the links under Advice and Guidance.  

Rationale

  1. To underpin the Open Research and Impact theme of the institutional Research Culture statement [1]. 
  2. To raise the profile of University of Leeds research.  
  3. To provide a full record of researcher and institutional research output. 
  4. To ensure that research funder open research requirements are met, including those of UKRI, Wellcome and the Concordat on Open Research Data. 
  5. To ensure that publications are eligible for submission to the REF or equivalent.  
  6. To complement the University of Leeds Research Data Management Policy which requires the long-term storage and preservation of research data, in particular data that enables the validation of research outputs and reported results.

Benefits

  1. Making outputs open access facilitates knowledge exchange and open research. Small and Medium-sized enterprises and other businesses who do not have subscriptions to journal literature will be able to access outputs that are freely available over the web.
  2. Outputs deposited in the institutional repository will be indexed by Google Scholar and other search engines, thus increasing visibility, access, subsequent citation and increases the potential for attracting collaborators. 
  3. Researchers have a comprehensive record of their research output. 
  4. Publications, data and links will be available to feed to School and personal webpages. 
  5. The deposit of research outputs in the institutional repository will ensure their long term preservation and storage.

Author requirements

  1. Authors must comply with their funders’ policies relating to open access and research data management. 
  2. Authors must register for an individual ORCiD identifier and should link it to their University Publications Database profile [2], include it on any personal webpage, when submitting publications, when applying for grants, and in any research workflow to ensure that the individual is credited for their work and that the correct institutional affiliation is achieved.  
  3. Authors must use a standardised institutional affiliation “University of Leeds” in all research outputs to ensure clear affiliation with the University of Leeds. 
  4. Authors must specify authors’ contributions in all research outputs to ensure individuals’ roles are identifiable and duly recognised. 
  5. Authors must include a Data Access Statement in all research outputs even where there are no data associated with the publication or the data are inaccessible. The statement informs readers where the associated underlying research materials are available and how they can be accessed.  
  6. Authors must acknowledge the source of grant funding associated with a research output in all research outputs. Information about the grant should also be linked, by the author, to the record of the publication in the University Publications Database. Grant information in the University Publications Database is fed automatically from the University’s Grant Information System [3] 
  7. Authors must retain the necessary rights to make the accepted manuscripts of research articles, including reviews and conference papers, publicly available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. Recommended wording to include in manuscript submissions is in Appendix 1. This requirement does not apply but is strongly recommended for outputs solely or jointly authored by PGRs (only).  
  8. Authors must record bibliographic details of all research outputs in the University’s publications database. For peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews and conference papers, this must be done as soon as possible after acceptance for publication. When creating the record in the University’s publications database, complete the appropriate fields to confirm that a data access and a rights retention statement have been added to the output itself. 
  9. Authors must deposit full text copies of final accepted peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews and conference papers into the institutional repository, via the University’s publications database as soon as possible after acceptance for publication. Where the output is already available open access via the publisher website a link may be provided instead. The deposit of other outputs e.g. monographs is also encouraged where copyright permits. 
  10. Where copyright allows and there are no confidentiality or commercial constraints, the research outputs in the institutional repository must be made ‘open access’, i.e. freely accessible over the internet. 
  11. Outputs must be made open access as soon as possible after acceptance [4].

Advice and guidance 

  1. The SHERPA Romeo website  provides details of the policies of different publishers with regard to copyright permissions. The Journal Checker Tool and SHERPA FACT help authors establish whether a journal is compliant with the relevant funder open access policy. 
  2. CRediT contributor roles taxonomy.
  3. Library research data support.
  4. Guidance on meeting the requirements of the policy and implementing rights retention is available on the Library website: Publications Policy Guidance
  5. Researchers can record their outputs in and deposit full versions via the University’s publications database following the instructions on the Library website. Full text copies of publications will be held in and made open access by the institutional repository. The University Library provides advice and assistance to help researchers.  

 University of Leeds 

(Version: October 2024) 

  Annex 

Place of Publication  

It is recognized that the choice of the place of publication is an academic matter. 

In determining where to submit work for publication the following will be taken into consideration: 

  • Disciplinary coverage of the proposed place of publication 
  • Capacity for timely publication 
  • Reviewing and editorial standards 
  • Other relevant discipline-specific factors 
  • Compliance with funder and institutional open access requirements 

Appendix 1 – Rights retention 

Outputs should include the following rights retention statement in the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript and any accompanying cover letter/note:

“For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.” 

Where the University has given a publisher prior notice of this policy the statement does not have to be included for a CC BY licence to be applied to the AAM. You can check the list of notified publishers at: https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1406/researcher-support/229/university-publications-policy/3. If your publisher is not on the list, please contact the Library’s Research Services Team who will notify the publisher as soon as possible and update the list accordingly. Where your publisher is not on the list, the rights retention statement must be included in the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript and any accompanying cover letter/note.

In exceptional circumstances it may be permissible for staff to opt out of the rights retention requirement. Please refer to the Library webpage for more information.  

[1] Research culture statement

[2] Increase research visibility   

[3] Information about linking grants and publications is available from the Help menu in Symplectic 

[4] UKRI policy states If necessary, a maximum 1-month delay is permissible for administering deposit of the Author’s Accepted Manuscript