Research and PhD Support

Open Access (OA) means that items of scholarly work are made available online, in a digital format, at no charge to the reader and with limited restrictions on re-use.

The OA movement is a worldwide effort to make scholarly work available online to everyone regardless of their ability to pay for access.

There are two types of Open Access, Green and Gold - see Green and Gold OA for more information

• Publications submitted to the next REF must be OA. To ensure that your publication is eligible for the next REF, it must be uploaded to our repository once it has been accepted by the journal.
• OA maximises research impact. With no barriers to access, your research is visible to everyone. This maximizes views and downloads, and makes it possible for other researchers to quickly learn about and build on your work to make further advances.
• OA is free for researchers. You do not have to pay to make your research available through Green OA - i.e. in our repository. In some journals, Gold OA may be your only option and will make your research instantly available to anyone. You may need to pay an Article Processing charge but you can apply for funding from the University.
• OA maximises the use of public funds. Traditional peer-reviewed research is the product of your time, labour and public funds – at no cost to the publisher. Access is then sold back to you via institutional subscriptions, at great profit to publishers. Unfortunately, these subscriptions rates are increasing and libraries can no longer afford to provide full access. OA ensures that the work you produce is accessible to everyone.

You can make your research Open Access by following the Green or Gold route. 

In the first instance, you should self-archive your accepted manuscript in a repository, such as our Leeds Beckett institutional repository. This fulfills the HEFCE REF requirements and ensures your work is OA.

You may also pay an Article Processing Charge to make your published work OA.

Please fill in the form at the bottom of the screen to see which is best for you.

New requirements from HEFCE require all publications to be self-archived in a repository at the point of acceptance (Green OA) in order to be eligible to be submitted to the next REF

Yes. If you wish to publish in a gold OA journal and where you do not have funding from an external source, you can apply for funding to cover the cost of an APC by completing this form and returning to your Director of Research - download Open Access APC Funding Request form (Word.docx).

Please see our library guide to APCs for more information, or contact us.

The Copyright Clearance Service works with the Research Services team based in Libraries and Learning Innovation and can offer guidance to staff around copyright to their published work.