University of Sheffield open access policies

The University’s Research Publications and Copyright Policy applies to all scholarly articles and conference proceedings published by University of Sheffield researchers and PGRs. The policy enables authors to control copyright to their own publications, apply a CC BY licence to them and make them available via White Rose Research Online (WRRO) without embargo. You can find a link to the policy and more guidance on how to comply on our Copyright pages. 

Although the Research Publications and Copyright Policy does not currently apply to monographs, scholarly editions, textbooks, book chapters, collections of essays, datasets, software, or other outputs that are not scholarly articles, the University strongly encourages researchers to make such works as openly available as possible, bearing in mind confidentiality and obligations to third parties such as commercial research partners. The University of Sheffield Statement on Open Research, Research Data Management Policy and Open Educational Resources Policy (under Intellectual Property) outline expectations for researchers in these areas.

The University also requires all doctoral theses to be submitted electronically to the University's repository White Rose eTheses Online (WREO). If possible, the full text of the thesis will then be made available open access via WREO and the British Library's EthOS repository.

Strategic leadership for the University’s open access policies is provided by the Open Research Advisory Group (ORAG).

Please note, University of Sheffield researchers may also need to comply with the REF open access policy, and policies set by external funders such as UKRI, the Wellcome Trust, NIHR and the EU. For more information, see the following links:

• REF open access policy
• Funder open access policies