Research & Scholarly Publications Team

Rights Retention Strategies

One of the key initiatives driving the Open Access agenda forward is Plan S, an Open Access framework which numerous major research funders have signed up to. 

One of the overarching goals of Plan S is to provide Open Access to funded research immediately from point of publication, doing away with publisher imposed ‘embargo’ periods which commonly delay Open Access to research publications by as much as two years.

If a researcher in receipt of funding from a Plan S signatory wishes to publish in a subscription access or ‘hybrid journal’ (one which publishes a mixture of open access and subscription access content) they may do so, however they will likely need to make use of their funder’s Rights Retention Strategy to comply with funder requirements.

The intention of a Rights Retention Strategy is that it allows the author to maintain sufficient rights over the accepted manuscript version (this being the version of an article 'as accepted' which reflects changes made as a result of the peer process, but prior to the publisher 'proof' version) of their work for it to be released immediately under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.

Up until this point the Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA) which a publisher conventionally asks an author to sign at the point of acceptance, not only assigns copyright of the work to the publisher but also contractually limits what the author can do with earlier versions of the work, such as the accepted manuscript. The Rights Retention Strategy is designed to challenge and override this practice.

Our practical advice for authors in receipt of funding from a Plan S member who are looking to publish in a subscription access / hybrid journal is to follow these steps:

1. Check with your funder as to whether there is a standard form of wording around rights retention which they asking authors to adopt at the point of submission. There are two subtly different methods which research funders are using: the ‘prior licence’ and the ‘prior obligation’ model. Depending on which approach your funder is taking will affect how this is worded.
2. Be clear with the journal at point of submission what your funder has required of you in terms of open access requirements and rights retention. This shouldn’t come as a shock to publishers as they will have been contacted prior to funders implementing their Plan S aligned open access policies. It is not expected that a publisher would subject a paper to a ‘desk rejection’ based on the rights retention strategy, however if this should happen please contact us at: oa.lib@coventry.ac.uk.
3. If asked to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement / Publication Agreement read through its terms and conditions to check this is compatible with your funder’s Open Access / Rights Retention requirements. If the terms of the agreement would not enable you to make your accepted manuscript available immediately at the point of publication under a CC BY licence then it is incompatible with your funder’s requirements - please seek to amend the agreement in this case. If you are unsure about an agreement which a publisher is asking you to sign please contact us at: oa.lib@coventry.ac.uk for guidance.