REF and Oxford
The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a national assessment of research quality. It informs how public funding for research is allocated in the UK.
To be included in the REF assessment, journal articles and conference proceedings with an ISSN must meet the REF open access policy.
The University of Oxford submits to the REF every 6–7 years. The next submission will be in 2028.
On 1 January 2026, new open access requirements for journal articles and conference proceedings will come into effect.
How to be REF compliant
The simplest ways for you to ensure your work meets REF open access requirements are to:
Make sure ORCID and auto-claiming are enabled in Symplectic Elements
If your article is made immediately open access by your publisher we can help automate depositing most outputs into ORA if your ORCID and auto-claiming are enabled in Symplectic Elements.
See our how-to guide on setting up your ORCID
Deposit in ORA
For any article that is not made open access immediately by the publisher, you should deposit your author-accepted manuscript into ORA. It will be made open access on the journal publication date – this is covered under our rights retention policy (SSO required)
- work published up to 31 December 2025 must be deposited within 3 months of acceptance.
- work published after 1 January 2026 must be deposited within 3 months of publication, but we recommend depositing as early as possible to avoid delays.
Publish your article using a Creative Commons or similar licence
Find out more about how to choose an open licence for your work.
How the REF open access requirements are changing
The table below outlines key aspects of REF open access policy, with notable changes highlighted in bold.
| For research published up to and including 31 December 2025 | For research published between 1 January 2026 — 31 December 2028 |
|---|---|
| Final peer-reviewed version of journal articles and conference papers (in publications with an ISSN). | Final peer-reviewed version of journal articles and conference papers (in publications with an ISSN). |
| Deposit within three months of acceptance for publication. | Deposit within three months of publication. |
| Immediate open access (‘gold’ or ‘diamond’) via the publisher AND/OR Deposit (‘green’) open access via a repository. |
Immediate open access (‘gold’ or ‘diamond’) via the publisher AND/OR Deposit (‘green’) open access via a repository. |
| Embargo allowance: 12 months (Main Panels A&B) 24 months (Main Panels C&D). |
Embargo allowance: 6 months (Main Panels A&B) 12 months (Main Panels C&D). |
| No licence specified or required but 'suggested' CC licences. | Must be made open access under a Creative Commons (or similar) licence, with a preference for CC BY*. |
*REF licensing requirements apply only to outputs made immediate open access by the publisher, (i.e. ‘gold’ or ‘diamond’), but the University Open Access policy advises using the same licences for deposit via a repository (i.e. ‘green’)
Keeping up to date with the changes
Further information
Although you may submit your accepted manuscript to ORA to fulfil open access requirements for the REF, the published version of record will be the version used by REF during the assessment.
UKRI compliant? You're good to go.
The following is in UKRI's official FAQ (checked 06/03/25):
The four UK higher education funding bodies (Research England, Scottish Funding Council, Medr: the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research and Department for the Economy, Northern Ireland) consider a UKRI open access compliant publication to meet the REF policy without additional action from the author or institution.
If your output is compliant with the UKRI funder's policy, it will meet REF requirements with no further action.
Other funders
There is much similarity between UKRI policies and those of others, such as Wellcome. It is likely that if you are compliant with these funders you will need to take no further action to ensure REF compliance, but it is crucial that you assess the funder policy vs REF requirements to ensure this.
Monographs are not subject open access requirements for the REF 2029.
Research England have stated:
An open access requirement for submission of longform outputs will be in place for the next assessment exercise, with implementation from 1 January 2029.
