Essex adopts Author Rights Retention Policy

The University of Essex has introduced a new policy that will ensure the accessibility and openness of research produced by Essex researchers. 

Hannah Crago, Open Research Development Librarian, tells us more about the policy.

Author Rights Retention

The Author Rights Retention Policy provides authors with the ability to control the dissemination of their research outputs, ensuring compliance with funder mandates and the Research Excellence Framework (REF). This is achieved by authors automatically retaining rights on behalf of the University of Essex, making their articles openly and immediately available regardless of any subsequent agreements with the publisher.

By retaining rights over their research outputs, researchers can:

• Control the dissemination of their research outputs.
• More easily comply with funder and REF policies.
• Bypass potential barriers introduced by publisher policies.
• Enjoy greater research visibility and academic freedom.

Open Research Culture

By aligning with the University’s commitment to an open research culture and the S10 University Librarians’ statement on rights retention, the policy aims to maximise research impact through increased visibility. From October, a version of all newly published Essex authored articles will be accessible to anyone to read and reuse. 

Speaking about the new policy, Jonathan White, Director of Library and Cultural Services and University Librarian, said: 

"We're really pleased to have been able to implement this new policy and empower Essex researchers to share their work with as wide an audience as possible. Having a policy in place for author rights retention reiterates the University's commitment to open research, and provides a crucial mechanism for our authors to achieve open access for their work, publish where they want to, and retain copyright control over their publications."

Find out more

The policy will come into effect from 1 October 2024, and is available to download in full here.

For more details on how the Author Rights Retention Policy works in practice, researchers can visit the Author Rights Retention pages on the Library Services website, or contact the Research Services team at oapublish@essex.ac.uk.