Research Excellence Framework

The Research Excellence Framework is a system that assesses research excellence in UK higher education providers. This assessment and its outcomes inform the  allocation of approximately £2 billion per year in public funding to universities’ research. The REF is administered by Research England on behalf of the UK higher education funding bodies: Research England, the Scottish Funding Council, Medr, Wales’ Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, and the Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland.

More information on REF and its objectives can be found on their website.

In December 2024, the REF team announced its updated open access policy, which will apply to all in-scope research outputs published between 1 January 2026 and 31 December 2028. Until then, researchers are required to adhere to previous REF2021 policies.

In-scope research outputs for REF2029 remain the same as those for REF2021:

  • Journal articles
  • Contributions to conference proceedings that have an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) 

Some of the key changes, which will come into effect January 2026, include shorter embargo periods and new guidance on when deposit is required. Either way, our guidance largely remains the same:

Deposit your research outputs in Pure upon acceptance, including the accepted manuscript if available.

Below, you can find key policy elements and ways of adhering to them for both REF2021 and REF2029. We recommend reading the whole policy available online.

REF 2021 open access requirements

The following requirements apply to in-scope research outputs published between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2025.

  • Outputs must have been deposited and made available in Pure within three months of acceptance.
  • The following embargo periods are allowable:
    • up to 12 months for Main Panels A and B
    • up to 24 months for Main Panels C and D.
  • Publications can be made open access through either the Green or Gold route.
  • Provide the date of acceptance.

While exceptions exist, it would be best to try to adhere to these guidelines when possible.

REF 2029 open access requirements

As noted above, these requirements apply to in-scope research outputs published between 1 January 2026 and 31 December 2028.

  • Outputs must have been deposited and made available in Pure within three months of publication. We continue to recommend deposit on acceptance, when you have the accepted manuscript to hand.
  • Outputs must have reuse licensing applied that allows free access and sharing. This includes but is not limited to CC BY - which itself is already required by our institutional open access policy for in-scope articles - and other Creative Commons licenses.
  • The following embargo periods are allowable:
    • up to 6 months for Main Panels A and B
    • up to 12 months for Main Panels C and D.
  • Publications can be made open access through either the Green or Gold route.

An updated list of exceptions has also been provided, though please adhere to the listed requirements where possible.

Support

If you are unsure how to deposit in Pure, check out our online guide.

If you have questions about the REF open access policy, please email us at:
openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.