Pure for REF

Pure is the King’s institutional repository and enables King’s research to be showcased and accessible to all via the King’s Research Portal. Pure is also the platform through which the King’s REF submission will be delivered.

The Library's Open Research Team offers regular online drop-in sessions where researchers can ask any questions they may have about using Pure and about compliance with the REF open access policy. To attend, please register on SkillsForge.

Deposit in Pure for REF 2029

Guide to Depositing on Pure

Quick guide to getting details of your research added to Pure and the full text version uploaded

Guide to depositing on Pure (0.17 MB PDF)

Publication records on Pure

To make a journal article or conference proceeding eligible for REF 2029 an author must ensure that they have:

Created a record on Pure for their paper on its acceptance for publication. Pure records must be created within three months of this acceptance date, which is usually the date the acceptance email was received from the publisher.
Uploaded the ‘Author’s Accepted Manuscript’ version of the paper to the record. The Author's Accepted Manuscript version is the final version of the manuscript submitted to the publisher which includes peer review adjustments, but which has not undergone publisher’s typesetting and formatting.

Creating a publication record on Pure

Log in to Pure (https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/admin/workspace.xhtml /).
Click the ‘Add New’ button in the top right and select the appropriate template for the research output type, e.g. ‘Article’
Complete the mandatory fields. Make sure to add the full date of Acceptance (in DD/MM/YYYY format) using the button ‘Add publication status and date…’:
You may wish to add information to non-mandatory fields too, such as adding an abstract.
Adding King's co-authors will be helpful and may reduce the chance of duplicate records being created.

Upload your full text to the publication record

Click on 'Add electronic version (file, DOI, or link)...' button:
Drag and drop or browse to find the appropriate version of the file.
Set 'Document version' appropriately. In most cases it will be the ‘Accepted author manuscript’
Set 'Access to electronic version' appropriately. If you are unsure whether a publisher needs an embargo, or about the length of an embargo, set the embargo for one month from date of upload and email librarypure@kcl.ac.uk informing us of this, Research Support will then check the publisher’s requirements.
Click 'Create'
'Save' the article record.

Research Support will check all the details, add a coversheet and validate the record. Once the record is marked as 'Validated' it can no longer be deleted, dates cannot be altered (although dates for new publication statuses can be added) and earlier deposited versions of the ‘Author’s Accepted Manuscript’ cannot be removed (though they can be ‘closed’ to leave the correct version accessible). These measures are to ensure records already compliant with the REF 2029 open access requirement are not unintentionally rendered non-compliant through loss of data. Validated records can still be edited and we encourage authors to update their Pure records adding volume, issue numbers, pagination and publication dates as these data are released by the publisher. If a larger change is needed for any reason, please contact librarypure@kcl.ac.uk

The Pure record will be live on the Research Portal soon after creation. There is a takedown policy on the Research Portal in case the copyright status of a full-text document is challenged.

The current REF open access policy requires that full-text versions of articles published in journals, and conference papers published with an ISSN must be deposited to a suitable open access repository within three months of their acceptance. The version that needs to be uploaded is the final accepted manuscript, after peer-review but without publisher's typesetting.

At King's, to ensure compliance with the policy, researchers upload their papers to Pure, King’s institutional repository. Data and full-text from Pure populates King's researchers' profiles on the King’s Research Portal, making the outputs openly available.

REF 2029: Act on Acceptance!

At King's, Pure enables your papers to become eligible for submission to REF 2029. Please ensure eligibility: act on acceptance and deposit on Pure!

Key features of the current REF open access policy

The policy applies to journal articles and conference proceedings with an ISSN. Monographs, other long-form publications, creative or non-text outputs and data are unaffected.
Affected research outputs that do not comply will not be eligible for REF submission – unless there was a legitimate reason that compliance was not met (please see the list of deposit and access exceptions)
Deposit must be of the author’s accepted and final peer reviewed manuscript version (sometimes known as the "post-print" version), not the publisher's final pdf.
Qualifying outputs must have a record created in a repository within 90 days of the date of acceptance (the date of the publisher's notification) and the author's accepted and final peer reviewed version of the full-text of the paper must be appended.
It is deposit within the time limit that is mandated - not the public accessibility of your paper. Most journals require you to embargo any paper you upload to Pure, to hide it from the public for a set period.
The maximum acceptable embargo periods are 12 months for REF Panels A and B, and 24 months for REF Panels C and D. King's researchers, thanks to the Rights Retention Strategy, can make their accepted manuscripts openly available immediately on publication, without any embargo.

Complying with the policy at King's

Qualifying research must be deposited in an acceptable repository such as Pure at the point of acceptance. See our 'Deposit' tab for a quick guide. Further support with creating or modifying Pure records is available from the Library Research Support team at librarypure@kcl.ac.uk. If you have any questions about complying with open access requirements for REF, please contact the Research Support team at openaccess@kcl.ac.uk

Is your research is funded by Wellcome Trust, UKRI, BHF or CRUK?

If yes, then complying with the current REF requirements alone will probably not satisfy your open access obligation to your funder. If you are funded by Wellcome Trust, UKRI, BHF and/or CRUK, please also complete this form to see how to ensure compliance with your funder's requirements. We will also be able to advise on eligibility for block grant funding to cover APC costs.

REF2029: claiming exceptions

To submit any journal articles and conference proceedings with an ISSN to REF2029, authors must comply with the REF open access policy. The policy is summarised on the Act on acceptance tab and how to comply one-page guide.

While failure to deposit the appropriate version within the time limit will render an output ineligible for submission to the next REF, Research England recognise that their requirements may for various reasons not always be achievable. Consequently, in certain circumstances an output may be excepted from the open access requirements and still be submissible to REF2029.

For instance, as long as the exception is claimed, they will accept articles appearing in journals that do not permit deposit in repositories - as long as the author considers that journal the most appropriate publication for the output. Similarly, if the journal will permit deposit in a repository, but only after more time than Research England consider acceptable (more than 12 months for STEM subjects; more than 24 months for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences), it will also be possible to claim an exception for an output. Several other circumstances, both personal and technical, may prevent deposit within the time limit, or deposit at all, and Research England have recognised many as exceptions.

Below is a summary of the exceptions that can be claimed to the open access portion of the policy for the next REF. They are ordered from those we expect to be most commonly used to those we expect to be used rarely. If you are not able to deposit as required and think one applies to you, it will be necessary to report it. Please click on the statement below that you believe applies to you and follow the instructions within to claim an exception for a given publication.

Summary of the exceptions

253b The publication concerned requires an embargo period that exceeds the stated maxima (12 months for STEM subjects; 24 months for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences), and was the most appropriate publication for the output.

Please create a record for your research output in Pure, uploading the Author's Accepted Manuscript version of your paper to the Pure record. The deposit of an author’s accepted manuscript version must be made at point of acceptance (or in the following 90 days).

Then fill in this exception form, including a statement to support the chosen journal as the most appropriate.

253c The publication concerned actively disallows open-access deposit in a repository, and was the most appropriate publication for the output.

Then fill in this exception form, including a statement to support the chosen journal as the most appropriate.

252b It was not possible for me to secure a copy of the Author's Accepted Manuscript version from the submitting author in time.

Please note that you are expected to take reasonable steps to secure the Author accepted manuscript version - e.g. contacting the first author and requesting a copy; checking the institutional repositories of other authors, checking subject repositories. Please see this page for guidance on securing author accepted manuscripts from other authors.

Create a Pure record for your article upon receipt of acceptance email as usual. Fill in this exception form.

252c I was not employed by a UK HEI at the time I submitted this output for publication.

If, for a given output, you became employed by a UK HEI after it was possible to comply with the REF2029 policy, but would like to submit it to the next REF, please create a record for it in Pure, uploading the Author's Accepted Manuscript version of your paper.

Additionally, please fill in this exception form – attaching evidence of your previous employment.

254a At the point of acceptance I was at a different UK HEI which failed to comply with the criteria.

If you have joined King’s having previously been employed by a UK HEI which did not comply with open access policy for the next REF, then it will still be possible to submit any outputs from that period even though they did not adhere to the policy. First, please create a record for any such output in Pure, then upload the AMM of your paper.

Finally, please fill in this exception form – attaching evidence of your previous employment.

252d It would be unlawful to deposit, or request the deposit of, the output.

Create a Pure record for your article upon receipt of acceptance email as usual. Fill in this exception form, including supporting evidence of the potential unlawfulness of deposit.

252e Depositing the output would present a security risk.

Create a Pure record for your article upon receipt of acceptance email as usual. Fill in this exception form, including supporting evidence of the potential security risk of deposit.

253a The output depends on the reproduction of third party content for which open access rights could not be granted (either within the specified timescales, or at all).

Please create a record for the output in Pure, upload the Author's Accepted Manuscript version of your paper, and set "Public access to the file" for the paper to "Closed". Fill in this exception form.

254c A failure of an external service provider prevented compliance (for instance, a subject repository did not enable open access at the end of the embargo period, or a subject repository ceased to operate).

We recommend that all potential REF submission be uploaded to Pure within the timeframes required. Please contact openaccess@kcl.ac.uk if you have any related questions.

254b The repository experienced a short-term or transient technical failure that prevented compliance with the criteria (this should not apply to systemic issues).

Contact puresupport@kcl.ac.uk if you are unable to access Pure. If the problem remains unresolved, please fill in this exception form – and please attach the Author's Accepted Manuscript version to the form.

255a 'Other' exception - for circumstances beyond an HEI's control

Where an output is unable to meet the criteria due to circumstances beyond the control of the HEI, including extenuating personal circumstances of the author (such as periods of extended leave), industrial action, closure days, and software problems beyond those listed in the technical exceptions, this exception should be used. If this is the case, please contact us at openaccess@kcl.ac.uk to discuss your circumstances or fill in this exception form.

252a The individual whose output is being submitted to the REF was unable to secure the use of a repository at the point of acceptance.

Creating Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) for grey literature.

In addition to creating and maintaining DOIs for datasets, Libraries & Collections can also create DOIs for ‘grey literature’ items.

While Libraries & Collections has created and maintained DOIs for datasets for several years, we can now offer DOIs also for ‘grey literature’ items. Grey literature might include outputs, such as working papers, protocols, reports and other items which do not have a traditional publication route (e.g., journal or book format), but where the research findings might benefit from being made more widely accessible and/or in a format possibly more suited to non-academic audiences, such as a pamphlet.

A DOI can be created and added to the document and it will then be published on Pure and made immediately accessible via the King’s Research Portal.

What is a DOI?

DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier which is a unique online reference to an object which contains details of how that object can be accessed.

Why should you get a DOI?

By assigning DOIs to research outputs, researchers can benefit from easier citation which can be tracked and measured more consistently. It means that the output will remain persistently accessible for the long term and will not fall victim to broken links and Error 404. By assigning a DOI to research outputs King's is committing to make this item persistently accessible and to as wide an audience as possible. King’s also commits to undertake any updates that may be required to deliver this.

How to get a DOI?

If you have something that might fall into the grey literature category or think this format might be helpful in disseminating findings of your research, then please get in touch.

If you have an active Pure profile, then please add details of the output to Pure and forward your request to us – making sure to include the Pure ID (email: research.data@kcl.ac.uk).

Please go to our Pure for REF page to see how to deposit and add details of a research output to Pure.

More generally, for more information or to find out if your output is eligible for a DOI, please contact the Research Support team (email: research.data@kcl.ac.uk).

openaccess@kcl.ac.uk

To speak to a member of the team, please email us using the address above to arrange a Teams call

Pure for REF

Deposit in Pure for REF 2029

Guide to Depositing on Pure

REF 2029: Act on Acceptance!

Is your research is funded by Wellcome Trust, UKRI, BHF or CRUK?

REF2029: claiming exceptions

Summary of the exceptions

Study at King’s

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Pure for REF

Deposit in Pure for REF 2029

Guide to Depositing on Pure

REF 2029: Act on Acceptance!

Is your research is funded by Wellcome Trust, UKRI, BHF or CRUK?

REF2029: claiming exceptions

Summary of the exceptions

Publisher Agreements