January 2026 brings changes to REF requirements and the way UEA is achieving Open Access. The team is visiting schools and research groups to discuss these changes, but this short video (8 mins) will provide you with an overview of the changes.
Rights Retention is a way to publish journal articles and other research open access immediately, regardless of a publisher’s standard terms and conditions and without having to pay for Article Processing Charges (APCs).
Rights Retention works by asserting your rights in your authored research publications before accepting the publisher’s terms. This enables you to upload your peer-reviewed Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM) to our UEA Digital Repository (via Pure) without having to apply any publisher embargo period and with an open access re-use licence.
Rights Retention helps ensure compliance with funder open access policies, for example UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Wellcome Trust, and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and facilitates compliance with the open access policy for REF2029 which will affect all articles and conference proceedings published from 1 January 2026. It is also beneficial for those whose research is unfunded or early career researchers without funds to pay APCs. Making all your publications open access without embargo can help increase the visibility and potential impact of your research.
Note that in some cases you will need to or want to go further than the green open access enabled by rights retention, making the final published version of record open access as well. Rights retention does not achieve this or provide money for Article Processing Charges (APCs), so you will need to find another way of achieving gold open access.
From 1 January 2026, UEA will have in place an institutional rights retention strategy to support authors with asserting their rights around making their publications open access. As well as helping make the University’s research as widely available as possible, it will help academic authors to meet funder and REF requirements around open access.
UEA’s approach to Rights Retention involves a change to the University’s Intellectual Property Regulations (IPR) and an update to its Open Access Policy. Researchers still retain the first copyright over their research publications and their choice of publisher and publication. This approach will come fully into effect on 1 January 2026. During autumn 2025, the Open Research team will be coming to talk to schools about Rights Retention and how it relates to complying with the REF Open Access requirements. Please come along to find out more and ask any questions you may have
The policy approach applies to scholarly articles and conference proceedings. It does not apply to monographs, textbooks, book chapters, creative writing etc (but please check if your funder has any requirements around these types of output).
The change to the UEA’s IPR grants the University a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use any Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) of Academic Articles created by research staff for archival and open access purposes. In practice, this means you have the right to self-deposit your AAM to Pure (which feeds through to UEA’s EPrints Digital Repository as well as the Research Portal) and make it available immediately, even if the publisher’s standard terms and conditions state an embargo or a different licence. The default licence is the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. More information about use of Rights Retention statements in submission, the choice of licence, or what to do if you think you need to opt out of the policy can be found on these pages and in the Open Access Policy.
The advantages of this institutional approach include that any publishers who objected would be challenging the University, rather than just the individual researcher, which may reduce the likelihood of challenge. It also removes much of the uncertainty around complying with open access policies for researchers. Many other UK HEIs have a policy on rights retention.
As part of introducing its Rights Retention policy approach, the University has contacted a number of UEA's key publishers to provide prior notification of its updated Intellectual Property Regulations and Open Access Policy. A list of contacted publishers is available [UEA login required].
This flow diagram summarises the steps that UEA authors should take to comply with UEA’s Rights Retention approach. It involves two new steps, which both occur before submitting an article to your chosen journal.
Step 1 (New!): Before submission. Confirm the use of rights retention with co-authors and any 3rd party material rights holders.
Step 2 (New!): At submission. Cut and paste the Rights Retention statement into the Acknowledgements section of the article and include it in the cover letter that accompanies your submission.
Step 3 (Existing): At acceptance. Create an entry for article in Pure and upload a copy of the Accepted Manuscript.
Step 4 (Existing): At publication. Update the Pure entry with (first/online) publication date.
Note: Step 2 is not mandatory but is strongly recommended.
When submitting your article or conference proceeding, we strongly recommend that you include the following statement in your Acknowledgements section and in any cover letter accompanying your submission:
"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."
On occasion, you may need to use alternative wording. For example:
For some papers, the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence may not be appropriate and you may need to choose an alternative licence (see also Why apply a Creative Commons licence?).
You must contact the Open Research team for approval on using an alternative licence by filling out and submitting the Rights Retention - Alternative Licence request form.
The Open Research team (as delegate to the PVC-R&I) will review alternative licence choices in the first instance and in most cases will approve the request. Sometimes the team may need to consult with colleagues across UEA, or refer the request to the PVC-R&I. This is most likely to happen if there is an issue with complying with a funder (see also How can I comply with funder requirements on Rights Retention?).
Any third-party material in a paper can be included under a different licence, if required by the rights’ holder. For example, if the paper includes an image licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC) licence, the paper can be released under a CC-BY licence with the image licensed separately with a CC-BY-NC licence.
This list gives examples of situations where an alternative licence may be required:
The paper has a co-author whose employment precludes the use of a CC BY licence but can use the Open Government Licence (OGL); usually this will be a co-author employed by a UK Government organisation. In this case the OGL should be used instead. The OGL is functionally equivalent to the CC BY licence.
The paper has a co-author whose employment precludes the use of both a Creative Commons licence and the Open Government Licence (OGL). This may apply to government employees outside the UK.
The paper makes use of third-party material licensed under a Creative Commons licence with a Share-Alike clause (either CC-BY-SA or CC-BY-NC-SA). In this case the paper should be made available under that same licence so that the Share-Alike requirement is met.
The researcher has requested and been granted permission to use a Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND) licence, or other specified licence, by their funder.
The copyright holder of third-party material objects to the use of their material in a paper that is licenced under the CC BY licence, but does approve the use if an alternative (Creative Commons) licence is chosen (noting that the licence of their material is separate to the licence for the article). For example, they do not permit the use of their material in a paper with a CC BY licence but do permit use of their material in an article licenced with a CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
The publisher objects to the use of a CC BY licence but not to the use of an alternative Creative Commons licence or other open licence.
If you are using an alternative licence, you must include a Rights Retention statement when submitting your article, stating your chosen licence. This ensures that the publisher receives relevant prior notification and helps the Open Research team to apply the correct licence to the accepted manuscript in Pure.
The use of All Rights Reserved rather than an open licence is considered opting out to the policy rather than registering an alternative licence. If you are considering reserving all rights, please consider using a CC-BY-NC-ND licence (the most restrictive re-use licence) instead.
To request using an alternative licence, please fill out and submit the Rights Retention - Alternative Licence request form.
If you want to opt out of the University’s requirements on Rights Retention, you must request approval via the Open Research team prior to submission (or as soon as possible thereafter) using the Rights Retention - Opt Out request form. Formal approval will be made by the PVC-R&I or their delegate.
This approval process has been set up to ensure that UEA is able to meet its open access commitments. It also means that the reasons for choosing to opt out can be monitored and analysed. Understanding the reasons for opt-outs will:
help us improve our guidance on the Rights Retention process.
feed into negotiations with publishers on aspects of Open Access publishing.
enable us to provide more support to authors when the reasons for opting out are due to external factors (such as push-back from co-authors or publishers).
Please note that this process for opting out of the policy may change over time, e.g. as a response to user feedback or changes to funder, REF or publisher open access policies.
Reasons for opting out of the policy for an individual publication include (but are not limited to):
an author does not have permission to share the AM with a CC BY or other open licence immediately on publication because of lack of agreement from co-authors.
the work contains third-party material and the third-party rights’ holder does not permit the re-use of their material in a paper licensed with a Creative Commons or other open licence.
the publisher does not agree to accept a submission that includes a Rights Retention Statement and is the most suitable venue for the publication. In the case of Conference Proceedings, the chosen venue may be the only available option for that publication.
If a publisher pushes back about rights retention (including keeping a Rights Retention Statement in the manuscript if one has been included at submission), please seek advice from the Open Research team.
For funded research, UEA expects academics and researchers to follow their funder’s requirements on Open Access. UKRI* and Wellcome Trust have requirements around retaining your rights when publishing journal articles and conference proceedings.
UKRI and Wellcome Trust provide guidance on notifying your publisher about what you need to do to comply with their open access policies.
Broadly, you will need to include a statement about Rights Retention:
You should use the following text:
"This research was funded in whole, or in part, by Research Council (Grant number XX/xxxxxxx/X) and/or the Wellcome Trust [Grant number xxxxx]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission."
Make sure you replace the funder and grant information with the relevant information for your publication.
The statement should ideally be included in the following places when you submit your article:
*The UKRI open access policy covers outputs of research grants from Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Medical Research Council (MRC), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It also includes some research funded by Research England and Innovate UK.
If you have any challenge from the publisher resulting from Rights Retention, please contact openresearch@uea.ac.uk for support and advice.
Note: An Open Government Licence (OGL) or (subject to the funder granting permission) a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence may be used instead of the CC BY licence.
To support researchers with sharing their expertise and findings more easily via the self-archiving route to open access.
To make it easier for those without access to funding to make their work open access.
To facilitate complying with REF2029 and other external policies around open access.
To constrain institutional publishing costs
To futureproof against any future loss of the UKRI Open Access Block Grant
To continue to allow immediate open access publishing for UEA authors if it is not possible for the UK HEI sector to negotiate deals with publishers that cover open access costs.
The aim is to enable immediate, unrestricted dissemination of knowledge within the research community and beyond.
Open access publications are not just free to read – they also make it clear how someone reading that publication can make use of it. One way of doing that is using Creative Commons licences. These licences are internationally recognised, easy to apply and to understand and used for lots of types of published material, not just research publications. They are also machine readable, which helps people find open access material.
A Creative Commons licence specifies the conditions that apply to re-use of that publication and typically require that the authors are credited. Creative Commons licences guarantees open access to the publication in the future and prevents third parties from restricting access at a later date. For more information on the licences available, go to the Creative Commons website.
The Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence is the chosen default licence in UEA’s rights retention approach as maximises the opportunities for re-use, and also ensures compliance with funder and REF open access requirements. If you think a different licence would be more appropriate for your publication, please get in touch with openresearch@uea.ac.uk so we can advise you on the best course of action. Please also see What if I want to use a different licence?
January 2026 brings changes to REF requirements and the way UEA is achieving Open Access. The team is visiting schools and research groups to discuss these changes, but this short video (8 mins) will provide you with an overview.
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