From 1 January 2024, the new Research Publications Open Access Policy comes into effect. This replaces the previous Open Access Policy which applied up until 31 December 2023.

Supporting open access publishing by rights retention

Imperial has updated its Open Access (OA) policy to allow researchers to make peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings available on an OA basis without post-publication embargoes. The Research Publications Open Access Policy (RPOAP) enables those outputs to meet funder obligations and to be eligible for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise.

What is the Research Publications Open Access Policy?

Imperial undertook a one-time notification of 128 publishers at the end of 2023. New publishers will be added to the list regularly. Prior notification enables authors to retain their rights to the accepted manuscript by default. Authors will, again by default, grant a non-exclusive licence to Imperial to allow immediate sharing of the accepted manuscript via Spiral upon publication of the article.   

RPOAP is a bold and innovative step towards a society where research is openly available for all to read and use. It empowers Imperial researchers to retain their right to share and reuse their work.

What do authors need to know?

Imperial introduced the RPOAP on 1 January 2024. It applies to all manuscripts and conference proceedings accepted for publication on or after that date, by all researchers and staff affiliated to Imperial.  

There’s just one thing authors need to do. By uploading their peer-reviewed, accepted manuscript to Symplectic, at the point of acceptance, they will achieve compliance with RPOAP and funder OA policies as well as REF eligibility.

Most research articles will be compliant with RPOAP by default if published in a fully OA journal or via a publisher that Imperial has signed a transformative agreement with, which covers reading and publishing. These routes are known as Gold Open Access. RPOAP means any articles that can’t be made OA in those ways can be made OA immediately via Spiral. This is known as Green Open Access.    

Why is Imperial introducing the Research Publications Open Access Policy?

Without rights retention, publishers can require authors to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement to publish their articles and impose embargo periods lasting several years during which the article is not OA. Authors need to add a rights retention statement to every manuscript at the point of submission to retain the right to share and reuse their work without embargo. Under RPOAP, all of this changes. 

RPOAP brings Imperial into line with universities in the UK and overseas that have implemented rights retention policies.  

The ultimate question is: who decides? Should publishers get to decide what research readers see and what they can do with it, or should it be for the research community to decide for itself? RPOAP answers the question in favour of the community.

Key questions answered

Key questions answered

What is the Research Publications Open Access Policy (RPOAP)?

Staff and researchers across Imperial help you make sense of the College’s new Open Access policy, which is in effect as of 1 January 2024. The policy enables Imperial authors to retain the right to share and reuse their work, and to make it Open Access as soon as it is published in a journal.

Latest updates

Read our blog post for Open Access Week

Read about the Research Publications Open Access Policy ahead of the launch

Read the blog post

List of notified publishers

Find out which publishers have been notified about the new policy

list of notified publishers

Deposit your work in Spiral

Deposit your accepted manuscript and conference paper as usual to retain your rights

Deposit in Spiral via Symplectic

Frequently asked questions

Contact the open access team

Do you have a question about the new Research Publications Open Access Policy (RPOAP) which is not covered here?

Get in touch with the open access team at: openaccess@imperial.ac.uk