The University supports open access to research as part of its mission to be recognised globally for the quality of its research.

In response to requirements from the UK government and research funders, the University has introduced an institutional policy (PDF, 238kB) to support the transition towards open access to research.

The University recognises the benefits of 'Green' open access as a means to achieve its goal of research-wide open access regardless of career level or funder. To enable this the University of Bristol have enacted a Scholarly Works Policy (PDF, 103kB) to ensure that authors retain the rights to make their accepted manuscripts open access immediately and with a creative commons attribution (CC-BY) licence.

This route is freely and equally accessible to all researchers - via subject specific repositories or Bristol's own repository, Pure - and this is at the core of Bristol's institutional policy for open access to research.

Key policy points

• Researchers must deposit the accepted author manuscript i.e. the version incorporating changes from peer review, but before publisher formatting has been applied.
• Allows for publisher embargoes to be respected: the maximum embargoes are 12 months (Main Panels A and B) and 24 months (Main Panels C and D).
• Includes deposit, access and technical exceptions.
• Credit will be given in the research environment component of the REF for working towards open access for outputs outside the scope of the policy.

Key Terms

‘Green’ open access

The University favours the green route to open access.  In this route, authors self-archive a version of their paper, usually in an institutional or subject repository. The paper may be kept under embargo for a period specified by the publisher. 

‘Gold’ open access

Publishers make the articles freely available to the public, usually for a fee called an article processing charge (APC).'

‘Hybrid’ open access

Publishers offer both the Green and Gold routes to open access. Authors will be asked to choose between arranging payment for a Gold open access APC, or free Green open access self archiving.

For more help with open access terminology, see our open access glossary.