N8 statement of support for the sector’s rejection of the Springer Nature proposal – N8 Research Partnership

“The N8 universities are fully committed to fostering open research in an equitable and financially sustainable way. We support the approach being taken by the UK’s Springer Negotiation Team and the recommendation to reject the most recent proposal from Springer on the basis it does not yet fully meet the core objectives of the negotiations.

We welcome the progress made so far and hope both parties can continue to work together to achieve an agreement which meets the core negotiation objectives and provides support for a sector-wide transition to open access….”

Open for good: rights retention at the University of Leeds – Leeds University Libraries Blog

“On 7 February, Professor Nick Plant, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation introduced the updated University of Leeds Publications Policy that came into effect on 1 January 2023, and which supports researchers to retain the intellectual property of their work. Nick emphasised how the updated policy complements the Open Research Statement to support an inclusive and collaborative research culture.

Following Nick’s introduction, Claire Knowles, Associate Director: Research and Digital Futures, welcomed Dr Theo Andrew from the University of Edinburgh, to talk about how and why their Rights Retentions policy was developed and lessons learned since its launch. Claire went on to discuss how we updated the Publication Policy at Leeds.  

Full event recording on YouTube: Open for good: rights retention at the University of Leeds …”

N8 Research Partnership: Rights Retention means researchers have a strong hand in terms of control over their own work | Plan S

“In 2008 Harvard’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences voted unanimously to adopt a ground-breaking open access policy. Since then, over 70 other institutions, including other Harvard faculties, Stanford and MIT, have adopted similar policies based on the Harvard model. In Europe, such institutional policies have, so far, been slow to get off the ground.

But we are beginning to see that situation change. Over the last months, an increasing number of European institutions have started implementing their own rights retention policies, thereby ensuring that research outputs are disseminated as widely as possible, whilst their researchers retain the freedom to publish in the journal of choice.

The N8 Research Partnership is a collaboration of the eight most research-intensive Universities in the North of England: Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York. Working together, all eight institutions issued a statement on Rights Retention, demonstrating their determination to support their researchers in taking control over their own work. In the following post, Professor Christopher Pressler, John Rylands University Librarian of the University of Manchester, and representative of the N8 Research Partnership, gives us a view from the ground and explains N8’s approach to Rights Retention….”

N8 Research Partnership – Statement on Rights Retention

“The N8 Research Partnership represents the research-intensive universities of the North of England. 12% of all UK academics work at N8 universities as well as almost 200,000 students. The N8 is one of the strongest regional academic consortia in the UK and believes the time is now right to make a coordinated statement on the rights held by our academics over their research….

. In order to achieve this third route to open access researchers need to be able to apply a CC BY licence and place their accepted manuscript in an institutional or other preferred repository. This must now be done without embargo granted to any publisher….”

N8 Research Partnership stands up for researchers with new Rights Retention statement – N8 Research Partnership

“The N8 – which represents 12% of all UK academics and 200,000 students – has released a statement outlining its new stance on the importance of researchers being able to obtain their original rights when their work is published in a journal. The statement was launched at an event held at the University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library, with speakers including the N8’s new chair Professor Charlie Jeffrey and Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Manchester. 

In April 2022, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) made it mandatory for all research published in journals to be made immediately available via Open Access or transformative Gold journals’ APC charges or through journals released on a transitional Read & Publish deal without APC charges. Open access can also be achieved via depositing the author accepted manuscript and making it available without embargo. 

However, in order to achieve this third route to open access researchers need to be able to apply a CC BY license – which allows anyone to make commercial use of the work under the condition of attributing the research in the manner specified by the author or licensor – and place their accepted manuscript in an institutional or other preferred repository. This must now be done without embargo granted to any publisher. 

However, some publishers are no longer compliant with several not accepting that a researcher’s original rights should be retained by them, meaning that publishers may not accept manuscripts where an application has been made for a CC BY license and the researcher has clearly stated that they own their research.  

The N8’s statement – which has been coordinated through the eight universities’ PVCs for Research, Research Offices, Legal Departments and Libraries – reflects the shared conviction of the importance of researchers retaining their rights.  

Each N8 university will have its own position which may supersede the publisher’s requirements, but ultimately if a researcher is able to publish via an APC to a Gold journal or in a journal covered by a Read & Publish deal then researchers do not need to assert their rights.  

However, the N8 statement strongly recommends that researchers do not by default transfer intellectual property rights to publishers and do use a Rights Retention statement as standard practice….”

Open access deal ‘weakens publishers’ position’ | Times Higher Education (THE)

“Several leading UK universities will ask their academics to deposit their accepted manuscripts in free-to-read domains as part of a new pledge to support open access publication.

Under a new commitment agreed by members of the N8 Research Partnership, whose institutions include the universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield, researchers will be urged to retain their intellectual property (IP) rights, rather than sign them over to publishers.

By doing so, scholars would be free to post final versions of research articles on institutional repositories, after obtaining a CC BY licence – a move that some publishers will not permit, or only allow after an embargo period, a route to publication known as green open access.

That has led to a stand-off between academics and publishers – with some journals refusing to publish manuscripts where an application for a CC BY licence has been made, whereby the researcher states they own the research….”