The Glasgow Caledonian University Publications Policy (2025) was launched on 1 October 2025.
The University adopted this policy to ensure its researchers can comply with the REF2029 Open Access Policy, and to enable the University to disseminate its research and scholarship as widely as possible (whilst enabling its staff and students to publish their work in a venue of their choice).
The rationale, and key benefits of adopting the policy are:
- To ensure that publications are eligible for submission to the REF
- To ensure that funder open research requirements are met, including those of UKRI, Wellcome and the European Commission
- To raise the profile of Glasgow Caledonian University’s research
- To provide a full record of researcher and institutional research output
- To enable GCU researchers, including research students, to retain copyright in their academic works.
The policy applies to all research outputs produced by staff employed by GCU and postgraduate researchers, unless specific instruction is provided. The University’s institutional repository, Pure, provides the mechanism for recording details of all outputs and the means for making outputs open access.
Any outputs accepted for publication before 1st October 2025 (prior to the adoption of this policy) are exempt.
As outlined in the policy, authors must deposit an electronic copy of the author accepted manuscript (AAM), or equivalent, of each research output into Pure.
The Library has formally notified all major academic publishers of the new GCU Publications Policy (2025).
The Library's publication checklist provides key information and steps to ensure authors can comply with the GCU Publications Policy (2025).
The REF2029 Open Access Policy comes into effect from 1 January 2026.
What do GCU authors need to do?
In order to assist the Library Research Team in establishing REF Open Access Policy compliance, it is required that GCU authors deposit the author accepted manuscript (AAM) of journal articles and conference proceedings in Pure within three months of the acceptance date. Authors should add the publication information and upload the author accepted manuscript.
What’s an author accepted manuscript?
The author accepted manuscript (AAM), also known as the post-print, is the final draft of the work after changes from peer review have been incorporated, but before the publisher has added any typesetting, formatting or logos.
What about gold open access?
For journal articles that have been published via the gold open access route (where the publisher charges a fee to publish), the author accepted manuscript (AAM) should still be deposited in Pure upon acceptance. The library will add the final published version later once it becomes available.
Further information and guidance
GCU staff can find guidance on how to deposit into Pure from the Pure webpage. If you have any questions regarding deposit or REF compliance please contact libraryresearch@gcu.ac.uk.
Your external funding body may have a policy that requires you to make your research outputs open access.
You can use Jisc's Open Policy Finder to identify and review funder open access policies and their requirements.
If you require additional support in relation to funder open access policies, please contact libraryresearch@gcu.ac.uk.
