Open access and the next REF
Royal Holloway
22 October 2014
Steven Hill
@stevenhill #OAREF
Publicly funded research 
should be freely open to 
the public that paid for it.
The policy context
●Open research is 
excellent 
research
●Mandates are 
successful 
●£2 billion
And now the REF
●Repositories are a tried and tested 
route to OA, a significant 
investment, and a national asset
●Author engagement must increase
●We must set reasonable and 
achievable goals, with flexibility 
(exceptions)
●We must set clear and 
straightforward rules
Our aims
Outputs submitted to a 
post-2014
REF should be “open access”.
The core principle of the 
policy
    Minimum requirements
     Extra credit
http://openclipart.org/image/300px/svg_to_png/8299/Gerald_G_Baseball_bat.png, http://openclipart.org/detail/6216/carrot-by-trnsltlife
●To be eligible for the next REF, 
journal articles and conference 
papers accepted after 1 April 2016 
must be:
●Deposited in a repository as the 
peer-reviewed manuscript (or 
better)
●Made accessible for read and 
download after 12 months or 24 
months
The minimum requirements
Maximum embargoes
•REF main panels A 
and B: 
• 12 months
•REF main panels C 
and D: 
• 24 months
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2010-07-20_Black_windup_alarm_clock_face.jpg
Will publishers allow authors 
to deposit their papers in 
repositories?
Yes!
How many journal articles are 
published in venues with 
permissible embargoes?
96%
0 25 50 75 100
How many papers are 
being deposited today?
12%
0 25 50 75 100
●Environment component of the 
REF can drive innovation and 
deeper, lasting change
●Benefits of OA should be 
extended beyond journals and 
conferences
●“© All Rights Reserved” is no 
basis for libre open access
Extra credit
Reuse and text-mining (libre OA)
Outputs not in scope (books etc.)
Extra credit
●Complex mixture of policies
●Compliance and culture change
●Technical challenges
●Cost issues for gold OA
●Long-term trajectory for UK OA
Challenges for institutions
● Implementation and monitoring
●Stability vs. harmony
●Acceptability of embargoed, 
double-dipped, and gratis OA 
●Long-term trajectory for UK OA: 
seizing the golden opportunity?
Challenges for policymakers
●Funder-publisher-institution 
coordination and monitoring
●FAQs, further information, review
●Technical implementation (Jisc, 
publishers, funders)
●Monographs and OA Project
●Open Data
Some further work
Thomas Jefferson
• He who receives an idea 
from me, receives instruction 
himself without lessening 
mine; as he who lights his 
taper at mine, receives light 
without darkening me.
Thank you for listening
s.hill@hefce.ac.uk
@stevenhill
openaccess@hefce.ac.uk