The Rights Retention Policy of Edinburgh University

Abstract

As the first UK institution, Edinburgh University adopted a Rights Retention Policy on 1st January 2022. As a result, all research articles written by Edinburgh’s researchers can now be made legally available in open access immediately upon publication in a journal or a volume of conference proceedings. In this episode, head of Library Research Support at Edinburgh University Library, Dominic Tate explains how the policy came into being and how it has been received by academic publishers.

In addition to Plan S, the 41 recommendations as stated in an Open Science Roadmap developed by a working group within LERU (League of European Research Universities) served as inspiration for the latest revision of the Open Access Policy at Edinburgh University. The institution has had an institutional repository in place for two decades and most researchers are routinely depositing their articles there. The next step was to enable these articles (usually in the form of the Author's Accepted Manuscript, AAM) to be made immediately available in open access without any embargo periods or other restrictions. About 160 publishers have received prior notice about Edinburgh’s rights retention policy and the reception has been overwhelmingly positive.

The podcast recording was made in conjunction with the Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing. It was first published online December 5, 2022.