Library: Open Access: Self-Archiving and Copyright approach

Copyright and Self-Archiving approach

The University of Bath has implemented a Self-Archiving and Copyright approach from 1 January 2025

Following the University's Rights Retention Pilot from Nov 2023 to Oct 2024, we are implementing an institutional rights retention approach via the Self-Archiving and Copyright approach which takes effect on 1 January 2025.

This will apply to all journal articles and conference papers submitted for publication from 1 January 2025 onwards.

It will enable University of Bath authors to retain the rights to re-use and re-distribute the accepted manuscripts of their journal articles and conference outputs as widely as possible while also meeting REF and funder open access requirements.

Authors can deposit their accepted manuscripts in Pure and make them open access at the point of online publication via the Research Portal under a Creative Commons licence with zero embargo. They will also be free to share them among colleagues and use them in their teaching.

The approach is useful for situations when:

Gold Open Access publication is not an option or cannot be funded
You wish to guarantee your rights over your AAM, allowing you to post it on websites, platforms and repositories with an open licence
You wish to comply with your funder's open access policy and self-archiving with an open licence is your preferred route.

Please click on the tabs above to find out more about the new approach and how it works.

Key documents

What is ‘rights retention’ and why is Bath doing this now?

Traditionally, publishers require authors to sign a copyright transfer agreement or an exclusive licence to publish. This usually means the only way to access the published work is to pay for it, and publisher permission is required for reuse. Rights Retention is based on the principle that authors and institutions should retain some reuse rights to their publications.

When you submit your work for publication, you are able to retain your rights to any accepted manuscript arising from that submission; this is because, as part of the new approach, the author assigns to the University of Bath a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide licence to make the work available under a CC BY licence via the research portal on their behalf. This enables authors to post their AAM in Pure with no embargo, share it with colleagues and use it in their teaching.

Main benefits of rights retention

Ensures authors can legally and compliantly disseminate their work
Helps solve the complexity of publishing while meeting funder and REF requirements
Aligns with the University's evolving research culture of openness in research practices and outputs

A growing number of research funders are mandating immediate open access to research outputs derived from their funding. This includes the Wellcome Trust, UKRI, Horizon Europe, Cancer Research UK and the NIHR. The open access requirements for REF2029 are likely to be more stringent. Higher education institutions and funders across the UK are driving the move towards open access through the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) as promoted by cOAlitionS. A growing number of universities have implemented an institutional Rights Retention Policy.

Applicability

This approach applies to authors and co-authors who are Academic/Research staff at the University of Bath but can also be adopted by Postgraduate Research students. It covers journal articles or conference proceedings, authored or co-authored while affiliated with the University of Bath, first submitted for publication from 1 January 2025.

Under the policy, authors grant the University a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide licence to make manuscripts of their scholarly articles publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence or a more permissive licence. Authors apply a CC BY licence to the AAM upon submission, giving precedence over any subsequent publisher's licensing agreement.

Inform co-authors

The corresponding author is responsible for making co-authors aware of the requirements of the Self-Archiving and Copyright approach and agreeing on a licence before submission. While CC BY is strongly encouraged, the University recognises the need for different licences based on funder requirements, such as CC BY-ND or the Open Government Licence for research subject to Crown copyright. You may wish to use our email template to contact your co-authors.

Rights retention statement

To inform publishers of their intentions, it is suggested that researchers include the following rights retention statement in the 'acknowledgements' section of their manuscript and the publisher cover letter when submitting any journal article or peer-reviewed conference paper for publication.

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

If your funder’s policy requires a different statement, use that one instead.

The statement is particularly important for making your work open access via the green (self-archiving) route if your publisher's policy requires an embargo or a more restrictive licence than your funder's policy allows. However the University has notified all major publishers of this policy and in these instances, the addition of the statement to your submitted manuscript is advised by not necessary.

See list of publishers contacted [link to follow]

Post-acceptance

Once your paper is accepted by the publisher, upload a copy of your Authors’ Accepted Manuscript (AAM) to Pure. The open access team will ensure that the file is released under a CC-BY licence upon publication. If you would prefer a different Creative Commons licence, please email: openaccess@bath.ac.uk

If a publisher asks you to remove the statement because the work is being made open access through another route, you are free to do so. Removing the statement from the submission does not remove the prior licence you automatically give to the University. You can still make the accepted manuscript downloadable from the repository from the first day of publication under the CC BY licence without breaking copyright law.

On publication

When your work is published online the OA team will ensure that the accepted manuscript is made open access via Pure under a CC BY licence.

Affiliation

You should include the University of Bath affiliation in all submissions to ensure full credit is given in bibliometric searches carried out for the assessment of research, league tables or other purposes. All researchers should use the form below when submitting an item for publication. As a bare minimum the phrase The University of Bath must be used, but the following format is preferred:

<Institute/Department> <University of Bath> <Postal Address>

Policy scope

The Copyright and Self-Archiving approach does not apply to monographs, scholarly editions, textbooks, book chapters, collections of essays, datasets, or other outputs that are not scholarly articles, but the University encourages making these as openly available as possible.

Opt-out

The University allows staff to voluntarily opt out of immediate open access or the assignment of a CC BY licence for a specific publication. Be aware that opting out may result in non-compliance with funders policies, potentially leading to sanctions or loss of grant money.

If you are considering opting out of immediate open access and/or the use of a CC BY licence, please email openaccess@bath.ac.uk for advice. The OA team will need to ensure your Pure deposit follows your publisher's requirements instead of being made immediately available. We therefore ask you to indicate your opt-out when uploading to Pure at acceptance. If not notified, the article may be made open access under the CC BY licence, which is irrevocable. For more information, visit the Support page.

Possible scenarios when it might be appropriate for authors to request an opt-out:

the publisher rejects the article submission because of the rights retention statement and the author(s) cannot publish the article in another journal
co-authors (including commercial partners) do not agree to make the AAM immediately available via the university's repository and/or under a CC BY licence.
there are commercial or other intellectual property considerations that preclude making the author's accepted manuscript immediately open access
the article contains a substantial amount of 3rd party material which cannot be licensed with a CC-BY. The redaction of 3rd party materials will compromise the reading of the article.
the author has already applied for a UKRI licensing exception.

Voluntary opt-in for PGRs

Other members of the University community, such as PGRs, may voluntarily opt-in to the policy. Contact the OA Team for information on how to do this or if you have any follow-up questions.

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID)

The University of Bath strongly encourages researchers, if they have not already done so, to register for an ORCID and populate their ORCID record. This can be done automatically via information already held in Pure you will need to edit your profile and authorise the connection between Pure and your ORCID profile. See further guidance. The University of Bath then asks researchers to use their ORCID in research outputs

Helpful links

Translation of Rights Retention Statement

The University of Edinburgh has helpfully provided a translation of the RRS statement in the following languages: Spanish, French, Greek, German, Polish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Chinese, Italian, and Welsh.

Plan S Rights Retention Strategy

Created by Coalition-S, the documents detail the benefits of RRS and how it works.

Getting help

The open access team will support you in meeting the requirements of the Self-Archiving and Copyright approach. Please contact us at: openaccess@bath.ac.uk if you have any questions about the process.

You will need to ensure that your co-authors are aware of the requirement to make your AAM openly available at the point of online publication with a CC BY licence. You are welcome to use this template email to inform co-authors about the requirements of the Self-Archiving and Copyright approach.

The University recognises that there may be situations when it is difficult to follow the requirements for specific submissions and in these cases you may wish to voluntarily opt out of the requirement for immediate open access, or the assignation of a CC BY licence. For example, you may wish to apply a publisher-specified embargo or a more restrictive licence such as CC BY-ND. Please note that:

This may cause the research output to be non-compliant with funder policies
If you are not publishing open access you will still need to deposit your AAM in Pure.

Please notify the open access team if you wish to opt out for a specific output and we will ensure your output is validated accordingly.

What is in this for me?

The University’s Self-archiving and Copyright approach recognises that the author owns copyright in their scholarly works, and helps the author to “carve out” a right to disseminate and share versions of their articles up to and including the author accepted manuscript. This benefits the author because it also applies to their own right to reuse their own work.

Normally a publisher would encourage an author to sign a “Copyright Transfer Agreement” (CTA) for each article which transfers ownership of copyright in all peer reviewed versions to the publisher. The author retains the moral right to be identified as the author, but aside from some minor concessions the author has to seek publisher permission to disseminate or reuse their own work, or can only do so under restrictive parameters.

The University approach protects the author’s copyright in their own ideas and the words, original content and structure of their accepted manuscript, enabling an author to share it openly, and reuse their own work without having to seek permission from a publisher.

The approach will help University authors meet funder and (stricter) incoming REF open access requirements where:

the Library does not provide a journal agreement that covers the publishing activity.
the author does not have access to funding to pay the journal article publishing charge (APC).
the journal does not provide an option to make the article open access on publication with a CC-BY licence, or the journal’s standard self-archiving policy applies embargoes that are too long to satisfy open access mandates, or a licence that restricts reuse.

In such circumstances, the author can deposit the accepted manuscript in Pure, and the open access team will make it openly available on their behalf, ensuring that the accepted version of the work is accessible for reuse and meets mandatory open access requirements.

Who else is doing this?

This approach, commonly referred to as 'rights retention' has been adopted by institutions globally and was pioneered by Harvard University in the mid 2000’s. Over 30 UKHEIs have implemented similar approaches and key funders mandate the retention of author rights through the inclusion of a rights retention statement applied to the submitted manuscript. See:

list of institutions that have adopted the approach globally.
list of funders who mandate inclusion of a rights retention statement in submitted manuscripts.

How does it work?

The approach affirms the author’s ownership of copyright in their scholarly work. In exercising ownership of that copyright authors grant the institution a “prior licence” to share accepted manuscripts on their behalf under a CC-BY licence.

This assignment of prior licence to the University is done at blanket level through the Intellectual Property Policy in Ordinance 22.3 e), so that all University staff and research articles are automatically covered and protected by the University position.
This prior licence exists before the article is submitted to the publisher, and the publisher is made aware of it (either because they have been notified of the University’s position in advance, or because the author has included a rights retention statement in their submitted manuscript).
The terms assigned to the University via the prior licence take precedence over any subsequent licence or transfer of copyright in the work. This carves out a prior right for the author via the University to share (and therefore themselves reuse and redistribute) all versions up to and including the accepted manuscript.
Any subsequent copyright transfer agreement (CTA) the publisher asks the author to sign can only apply to the published version of record (VoR), and then only to the typesetting, editorial contributions, formatting, layout and original content the publisher has introduced. Copyright of all previous versions – including the accepted manuscript - remains property of the author.
The author can self-archive the accepted manuscript version in Pure, and the institution will share it on their behalf at date of first publication, without embargo and under a CC-BY licence,
These conditions enable the output to meet both REF 2029 and funder requirements regardless of how the VoR has been published.

What will my co-authors think?

The concept of “rights retention” is now widely practised in the UK and global HE sector, and authors at institutions with policies in place should be familiar with it.

Check if your co-authors belong to one of the institutions that have adopted the same Self-archiving and Copyright approach as the University.

You and your co-authors should consider open access requirements and publication routes from the outset and this should form part of that conversation (particularly where no viable publisher option is available). Many funders mandate open access and the inclusion of a rights retention statement in the submitted manuscript, and it will be the only practical way to meet incoming REF open access requirements in some circumstances.

If you are the corresponding author, you need to reach agreement with your co-authors on the route to open access. The open access team have prepared a template email for corresponding authors to use when contacting co-authors about adopting the University Self-archiving and Copyright approach.

If co-authors do not agree to the approach, you can opt-out of the policy for that publication, but do ensure that any open access requirements are being met through another route.

How will my editor/publisher react?

Over 30 UKHEIs have already implemented this approach and contacted publishers to notify them that they have done so. Across the sector there have so far been no reports of publishers challenging the institutional position legally or otherwise. Very few have responded to institutions to say that they disagree with it. This is because the legal basis for the approach is sound.

The University’s position and right of its authors to retain copyright in their accepted manuscript is also recognised under the terms of many of the Library publisher agreements – these allow for the application of rights retention where the journal does not have a paid for open access publishing model.

Some editors may try to divert authors to other journal titles that offer a paid for publishing route. Occasionally an editor may threaten to reject a submitted manuscript unless the author revokes the prior licence assigned to the University, and agrees to transfer copyright ownership to the publisher.

In these circumstances, if the author does not want to resubmit the article to another title, they can exercise their right to “opt-out” and withdraw the licence assigned to the University for that manuscript. However, they should always be aware of the risk their publication is not compliant with open access requirements.

Contact the Library open access team for advice and support in such situations: openaccess@bath.ac.uk

When do I need to add a rights retention statement to my submitted manuscript?

You need to add the University rights retention statement to your submitted manuscript in these circumstances:

the publisher has not previously been notified by the Library of the University’s approach (see the ).
or it is a mandatory requirement of your funder (apply the funder’s preferred statement in place of the University one, see example statements for each funder).

The University rights retention statement is as follows, and should be included in the acknowledgements section of your submitted manuscript, and in any covering letter or email that accompanies 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'

If your article is being published immediately open access under a CC-BY licence (eg. because it is covered by a Library publisher agreement or an article processing charge has been paid) you do not need to include a rights statement in the submitted manuscript. Most University publishing activity is covered under current journal publishing agreements or the payment of APCs.

What happens if the publisher makes me sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA) that covers the author accepted version of my manuscript?

If a publisher asks you to sign over copyright ownership for the accepted manuscript while the prior licence granted to the University (via Ordinance 22.3 e) is in place, the terms of their CTA will be invalid. This is because the prior licence takes precedence over any subsequent CTA. Therefore, you can sign a CTA, but it has no legal validity over the accepted manuscript version.

Further, if the publisher asks you to sign a CTA knowing that the University’s prior licence is in place, they can even commit the offence of procuring a tort of contract.

All the publisher can claim is copyright in the final published version (version of record or VOR), and this copyright ownership is restricted to their editorial input, typesetting, layout, and any content they have developed (figures, illustrations, etc) for the final version.

You retain ownership of copyright in the accepted peer reviewed version of your manuscript, your words, structure, ideas and original content.

The only exception to this is if you agree with the publisher or editor to withdraw the prior licence assigned to the University for that publication (opt-out). Then the publisher can ask you to sign over your ownership of copyright in all peer reviewed article versions via a CTA… if you agree to their terms.

What happens if my editor removes the rights retention statement from my accepted manuscript?

All the editor has done is remove the wording. The wording has already served its purpose in terms of notifying them that you have applied rights retention to your accepted manuscript. The thing that applies rights retention in practice, is the grant of the prior licence to share your work, which is made to the University via Ordinance 22.3 e).

Removing the statement does not remove the prior licence to share the manuscript which has been granted to the University. The author can still deposit their manuscript in Pure and the University (via the open access team) will share it on their behalf.

Only the author as copyright owner can decide to withdraw the prior licence assigned to the University. You can do this by exercising your right to “Opt-out” for that publication.

I didn’t include a rights retention statement in my article submission. Can I still apply the Self-archiving and Copyright approach to my accepted manuscript?

My editor or co-authors don’t want me to apply the Self-archiving and Copyright approach to the article. What can I do?

If you cannot reach an agreement with your editor or co-authors and are unable to proceed with the publication of the manuscript because of the Self-archiving and Copyright approach, you may exercise your right to opt-out. However, consider whether open access requirements for the article are being met before doing so, or whether there is an alternative route to publishing open access.

Contact the open access team for advice and support: openaccess@bath.ac.uk.

When can I opt out of the University Self-archiving and Copyright approach?

The scenarios which may lead to an author opting out (withdrawing the prior licence assigned to the University), are typically:

The publisher rejects the article submission because of the rights statement, and the author(s) cannot publish the article in another journal.
Co-authors (including commercial partners) do not agree to make the accepted manuscript immediately available via the University repository and/or under a CC-BY licence.
There are commercial/other intellectual property considerations that preclude making the author accepted manuscript immediately open access.
It would be unlawful to make the article immediately accessible under a CC-BY licence (eg, the article contains a substantial amount of 3rd party material which cannot be licensed with a CC-BY and the redaction of 3rd party materials will compromise the reading of the article).
the author has already applied for a UKRI licensing exception.

Do I have to apply for an opt-out?

No. As owner of the copyright in your scholarly works, you can choose to withdraw the prior licence granted to the University under Ordinance 22.3 e). You do not need to apply for a waiver or justify this. However, we do ask authors to beware of the possible implications of doing this – particularly where it means an article would no longer be open access compliant for REF purposes, or a funder requirement isn’t being met.

Consider any open access requirements for the article (REF, funder or other), and whether these are being adequately met.
Contact the open access team for advice and guidance if you are unsure about the implications of opting-out, or for advice and guidance on options: openaccess@bath.ac.uk.

Can I opt out only once for all my article publications?

What happens if I opt out?

The open access team will follow the standard journal self-archiving policy and will apply any specified embargo and licensing restrictions to your accepted manuscript before making it available via the Bath research portal.

Please be aware that these conditions may mean your output is not open access compliant with funder or REF open access mandates. Contact the open access team for advice: openaccess@bath.ac.uk.

How do I opt out?

When your paper is accepted by the journal, you can email the open access team at openaccess@bath.ac.uk to notify them of your intention to opt out (withdraw the prior licence granted to the University for that work under ordinance 22.3 e)

Alternatively, you can notify them when you create a record in Pure for the publication and upload the accepted manuscript. Please type 'Opt-out' in the Rights Statement field in the Electronic Versions > File section.

You will find on-screen instructions in the Pure record to indicate opt-out for a publication.

Contact the open access team for help: openaccess@bath.ac.uk.

I've already deposited my manuscript under the Self-archiving and Copyright approach and it has been made available via the research portal, but now I wish to opt-out. Can I do this?

No. If you applied rights retention to your work when it was deposited, and the open access team has made the manuscript available via the research portal with a CC BY licence, this cannot be withdrawn. Once the CC-BY licence has been applied to it, that is irrevocable.

You should always indicate your intention to opt out at the point of deposit and before the open access team has validated the Pure record and published the accepted manuscript on the portal.

Open Access: Self-Archiving and Copyright approach