As it’s International Open Access week (yes, there is such a thing!), I thought it’d be a good time to give an update on how the University is doing.

I’m pleased to tell you that we’re doing rather well.  The University has made over 90% of journal and conference articles published since 2016 Open Access via Pure.    This is a significant increase on this time last year, when we had 66% of articles in Pure.

Open Access means that articles can be downloaded for free (in our case, from the Research Portal) by anyone in the world.  Releasing the University’s research in this way potentially accelerates scientific discovery, while also enabling industry, charities, governments and the general public to use it for creative and innovative purposes.  It also benefits individual researchers by potentially increasing readership and citations.

HEFCE have recognised these benefits and require that all journal and conference articles (accepted for publication after 1st April 2016) are Open Access in order to be REF eligible.  So it’s essential that you upload your articles to Pure as soon as they’re accepted for publication.

If you have any questions about Open Access, then please contact the Research Outputs team. We’re based in the Library and can be contacted on openaccess@port.ac.uk  Or feel free to contact me directly on emily.davey@port.ac.uk (Research Outputs Manager – University Library, and Research and Innovation Services).

 

(The 90% figure is calculated by comparing each article in Pure to each article in Scopus).