UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) requires immediate, no-embargo open access for the peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers it funds. This funder policy is distinct from — but feeds directly into — the separate open-access eligibility criteria the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2029 applies when institutions submit outputs for assessment. Researchers and research administrators routinely conflate the two; this page separates them and gives the exact routes, deadlines, and licensing rules for each.
Last verified 16 August 2026 against ukri.org and 2029.ref.ac.uk primary policy pages. This page covers journal articles and conference papers. For UKRI’s separate policy on monographs, book chapters, and edited collections (1 January 2024, 12-month deposit window, more flexible licensing), see UKRI Open Access Policy for Monographs, Book Chapters, and Edited Collections.
UKRI’s funder open access policy vs. REF 2029’s assessment policy — the difference that matters
These are two separate policies, run by two separate bodies, with different compliance windows:
- UKRI’s open access policy is a condition of the grant: it applies to any peer-reviewed research article or conference paper (with an ISSN) that acknowledges UKRI funding and was submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022. Non-compliance is a grant-conditions issue.
- REF 2029’s open access policy (Section 5 of the REF 2029 guidance) is a condition of an output’s eligibility for submission to the assessment exercise, applied by the four UK funding bodies. It has its own deposit deadline, embargo tolerances, and a small allowance for non-compliant outputs — it does not simply defer to the UKRI grant policy, even though the two are aligned in intent.
An article can be UKRI-grant-compliant and still fall outside REF’s separate output-eligibility criteria (or vice versa) if the two deadlines or licence terms aren’t both met. Treat them as two checklists, not one.
UKRI open access policy for journal articles and conference papers
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Scope | Peer-reviewed research articles and conference papers with an ISSN, acknowledging UKRI (or a UKRI council) grant funding |
| Effective date | Applies to articles submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022 |
| Embargo | None permitted. Immediate open access is required on first online publication. |
| Licence | CC BY required by default. A CC BY-ND licence or the UK Open Government Licence (for Crown Copyright) may be used only where the author has requested and been granted an exception. |
| Route One | Publish open access directly (gold OA in a fully OA journal/platform, or via a transformative agreement), so the publisher’s version of record is immediately open under CC BY |
| Route Two | Deposit the author’s accepted manuscript (AAM) — the peer-reviewed, post-review version before publisher typesetting — in an institutional or subject repository, made available with no embargo at the time of final online publication, under CC BY or a permitted exception licence |
Because Route Two requires the AAM to be openly available at the moment of first publication with zero embargo, the practical deadline is at acceptance, not publication: authors need to deposit the AAM in a repository as soon as the paper is accepted, so the repository copy is ready to go live the moment the journal publishes. Waiting until publication day to start the deposit process routinely causes a compliance gap. See author accepted manuscript (AAM), green open access, and gold open access.
The rights retention statement
UKRI’s policy is implemented through the sector-wide Rights Retention Strategy (originally developed alongside cOAlition S / Plan S). At submission, authors are expected to include a statement in the manuscript’s acknowledgements or funding-statement section asserting the right to make the AAM open under CC BY, regardless of what licence or embargo the publisher’s own standard agreement would otherwise impose. UKRI’s own guidance gives this wording:
“For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence’ may be stated instead) to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.”
Including this statement at submission is what lets the author retain the right to deposit an open AAM even if the publisher’s standard copyright transfer agreement would otherwise attempt to override it — see Rights Retention Strategy: Resolving the Funder-Publisher Conflict for how to handle a publisher that pushes back on this statement during submission or peer review.
REF 2029 open access criteria for outputs (Section 5)
REF 2029’s own open access policy (Section 5 of the REF 2029 guidance, published at 2029.ref.ac.uk) applies separate, date-banded criteria to journal-article and conference-paper outputs an institution wants to submit for assessment. It runs two output-date periods with different embargo ceilings and licensing expectations:
| Criterion | Outputs published 1 Jan 2021 – 31 Dec 2025 | Outputs published 1 Jan 2026 – 31 Dec 2028 |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit deadline | As soon as possible after acceptance, no later than 3 months after the acceptance date | Within 3 months of publication |
| Discoverability | Required — output must be discoverable in a repository | Required |
| Access | Text-searchable, readable, downloadable free of charge | Text-searchable, readable, downloadable free of charge |
| Embargo — Panels A/B | Up to 12 months permitted | Up to 6 months permitted |
| Embargo — Panels C/D | Up to 24 months permitted | Up to 12 months permitted |
| Licensing | Not mandated | Strong preference for CC BY; CC BY-NC or CC BY-ND permitted for this transition period (licensing becomes mandatory for outputs published from 2029 onward) |
REF 2029 also carries forward a tolerance allowance: an institution may submit a maximum of 5% non-compliant in-scope outputs, or one non-compliant output, whichever figure is higher. That allowance is deliberately narrow — it covers genuine edge cases (a publisher that won’t cooperate, a repository failure), not a general compliance buffer to plan around.
Note that REF’s embargo tolerances (up to 12 or 24 months, depending on panel and period) are looser than UKRI’s own funder policy, which permits no embargo at all. An output that only meets REF’s embargo allowance without also meeting UKRI’s zero-embargo grant condition is still non-compliant with the funder policy — REF eligibility does not substitute for grant-condition compliance, and vice versa. REF 2029’s guidance states its Section 5 policy is designed to align with UKRI’s open access policy “in operation since 1 April 2022,” but the two retain independently-defined deadlines and thresholds, so check both.
REF 2029’s own guidance modules, including Section 5, are stated to be finalised in 2026 and “may be subject to small revisions” — reconfirm current figures directly against 2029.ref.ac.uk’s Section 5 guidance page before relying on a specific number close to a submission deadline. For how OA compliance sits alongside REF 2029’s other output-eligibility rules, see REF 2029 Output Eligibility Period and REF 2029 Portability Rules, and for the related concept REF’s policy uses to anchor its compliance windows, see date of first open access.
Compliance checklist for a UKRI-funded journal article
- Confirm the article is in scope: peer-reviewed, has an ISSN, acknowledges UKRI/council funding, submitted on or after 1 April 2022.
- At submission, add the rights retention statement to the acknowledgements/funding-statement section (wording above).
- Decide the route: gold OA/transformative agreement (Route One) or AAM deposit (Route Two). Many institutions default to Route Two unless a transformative agreement with the publisher already covers the journal.
- If depositing the AAM, do it at acceptance — not publication — so it can be released with zero embargo the moment the article is published.
- Apply CC BY to the AAM (or the approved CC BY-ND/Open Government Licence exception).
- Separately, if the output may be submitted to REF 2029, check it also meets Section 5’s deposit-within-3-months and embargo-band rules for its publication-date period — do not assume UKRI compliance automatically satisfies REF eligibility.
Frequently asked questions
Does UKRI’s open access policy apply to books and book chapters?
No — long-form outputs (monographs, book chapters, edited collections) are covered by a separate UKRI policy effective 1 January 2024, with a 12-month deposit window and more flexible licensing than the journal-article policy. See UKRI Open Access Policy for Monographs, Book Chapters, and Edited Collections.
What licence does UKRI require for journal articles?
CC BY by default. A CC BY-ND licence or the UK Open Government Licence (for Crown Copyright works) may be used only where UKRI has granted an exception request.
Is there an embargo period allowed under UKRI’s policy?
No. Immediate open access with no publisher embargo is required for journal articles and conference papers submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022, regardless of route.
Does complying with UKRI’s open access policy automatically satisfy REF 2029’s open access criteria?
Not automatically. The two policies are aligned in intent but run on separate, independently-defined deposit deadlines, embargo tolerances, and licensing rules (see the comparison table above). Check an output against REF 2029 Section 5 separately from checking it against the UKRI grant-conditions policy.
What is a rights retention statement and do I have to include it myself?
It’s a short statement authors add to a manuscript’s acknowledgements or funding-statement section at submission, asserting the right to apply a CC BY licence to the AAM regardless of the publisher’s standard copyright terms. UKRI’s guidance provides the exact wording; authors (not the institution’s repository team) are responsible for adding it at the point of submission, since it needs to be in place before any publisher agreement is signed. See Rights Retention Strategy.
What counts as the “author’s accepted manuscript” for deposit purposes?
The final peer-reviewed version of the article — incorporating all revisions from peer review — before the publisher applies its own typesetting, copyediting, and formatting. It is not the same file as the submitted-for-review draft or the publisher’s formatted version of record. See author accepted manuscript (AAM).
Related CASRAI resources
- UKRI Open Access Policy for Monographs, Book Chapters, and Edited Collections
- Rights Retention Strategy: Resolving the Funder-Publisher Conflict
- REF 2029 Output Eligibility Period
- REF 2029 Portability Rules
- UKRI Grants: How the Nine Councils and Funding Service Fit Together
- Sherpa/Juliet Funder Open Access Policy Database
- Date of first open access
- Gold open access
- Green open access
