Abstracts: copyright is normally applicable to published abstracts. However, it is permitted for scientific and technical abstracts to be copied under section 60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Section 60. Abstracts of scientific or technical articles
(1)Where an article on a scientific or technical subject is published in a periodical accompanied by an abstract indicating the contents of the article, it is not an infringement of copyright in the abstract, or in the article, to copy the abstract or issue copies of it to the public.
(2)This section does not apply if or to the extent that there is a licensing scheme certified for the purposes of this section under section 143 providing for the grant of licences.
You will need to obtain permission from the publisher to re-use published abstracts for the Arts & Humanities. Alternatively, create your own abstract.
Unpublished conference paper: where no publisher agreement has been signed for an unpublished conference paper you will hold the copyright and may self-archive in a repository. Please ensure that you have not included any third party content without permission. If you intend to publish in a journal, ensure that self-deposit in a repository is not regarded as prior publication with any prospective publisher.
Reports written for a third party organisation may have very specific author re-use rights assigned to the project. Where permission is required, contact the commissioning organisation.
Open Government Licence (OGL) - Crown Body employees e.g. from the National Archives, Welsh Government etc. (full list here) are subject to Crown Copyright under section 163 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
However, in order to facilitate the re-use of a wide range of public sector information free of charge in accordance with the 2015 Regulations on the Re-use of Public Sector Information (PSI), the OGL has been introduced. When Crown bodies are involved in publicly funded research collaborations with HEIs, the research output should be made available using the OGL which allows a re-user, free of charge, to copy, publish, distribute, transmit, adapt and exploit information both commercially and non-commercial for the life of the work, providing the source of the information is acknowledged by including or linking to an attribution statement. Visit the National Archives 'copyright notices and attribution statements' page for good attribution examples for a wide variety of output types.
Please visit our Research Data Support Services for Researchers research guide for extensive information on data management planning, working with data, archiving data and text and data mining. You can contact the Research Data Manager at research-data@swansea.ac.uk
Society of Authors
The SoA is a trade union for all types of writers, illustrators and literary translators, at all stages of their careers. They provide legal and copyright advice to members.
Creative Commons (CCL) are pre-prepared licences that are intended to help copyright holders distribute their work; they define how it can be used by others without the need to grant permission each time someone wants to use it.
Creative Commons, has a number of model licences which authors can apply ‘as given’ or adapted to their requirements. The licences contain four main elements:
These elements then combine to form six licences plus a final CC Zero or public domain licence which purports to waive all rights to the material it is applied to.
Purpose
Swansea University is committed to disseminating its research and scholarship as widely as possible. It supports the principle that the results of publicly funded research should be freely accessible to the public. Academics at Swansea University have traditionally assigned or given away their scholarly works (in addition to the University’s rights) to publishers by transferring copyright at the point of publication. This means that many journal articles and scholarly works are under complete or partial control by academic publishers.
This research publications policy enables researchers to retain re-use rights in their own work and requires full and immediate open access for all:
Authors who are not citing specific grant funding are required to retain their author rights.
Swansea University adopts the following research publication policy:
1. Each staff member grants to Swansea University a non‐exclusive, irrevocable, sub‐licensable, worldwide license to make accepted manuscripts of their scholarly articles and book chapters publicly available. This license is granted on condition that, if Swansea University does make the said research article or book chapter available in its institutional research repository, it will usually do so under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY) licence, (the Swansea University Open Access Licence).
2. The licence applies to scholarly outputs authored, or co‐authored, while a person is a staff member or UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) funded research postgraduate student at Swansea University, including any third-party content where rights in that content have been secured. The licence does not apply to any articles submitted before the adoption of this policy (01/07/2023), or any articles for which the staff member, or UKRI funded post-graduate, entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy.
The policy does not apply to:
* Except UKRI funded monographs, edited collections and book chapters published from 1 January 2024. This policy will be updated as and when changes occur to all relevant funder policies.
Even though the policy does not apply to the output types above the university strongly encourages publication of such outputs with a suitable Creative Commons licence where possible. It is our intention to align UKRI funded monographs to this policy from 01/01/2024.
3. Where this policy applies to an article that is co‐authored, the staff member will use all reasonable endeavours to obtain a licence to Swansea University from all the co‐authors on the same terms as the licence granted under this policy by the staff member. Swansea University automatically sub‐licenses the rights granted to it under this policy to all co‐authors and their host institutions, on condition that if the said co‐authors and/or host institutions make a co‐authored scholarly article publicly available, they will do so on the terms of a CC-BY licence. Consequently, the staff member need not seek permission from co‐authors employed by institutions that have adopted this policy or other policies that give institutions and/or authors the same rights.
Authors who engage in UKRI, or unfunded, collaborative research with partners external to the university should inform such partners that any in-scope output types will be published under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY) licence unless an opt-out has been granted.
4. Opting out of the Research Publications policy
The Swansea University policy applies from 01/07/2023. However, in exceptional circumstances it is permissible for research staff to opt out of the requirement for immediate open access upon publication, or the assignment of a CC-BY licence.
This action may cause the research output to be non-compliant with funder policies.
Circumstances where opt-out may be appropriate include:
Opt-out of the policy when the scholarly article is accepted for publication by completing the online form.
By completing the opt-out form, the author understands that a waiver will be permitted and a delay in the public release of the manuscript for a period of up to twelve months from the date of first publication (embargo) will be allowed.
5. The Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research Culture will be responsible for interpreting this policy, resolving disputes concerning application, and recommending changes. The University shall use all reasonable endeavours to inform publishers of the existence and contents of this policy. The policy will be reviewed periodically.
To see if you can benefit from one of the Swansea University 'Read & Publish' publisher agreements for 'gold' Open Access visit our webpage. You are required to use a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 CC-BY licence.
If you are opting out of the policy you must complete an online form and state the reason. An alternative Creative Commons CC-BY-ND licence may be acceptable if funder approved.
Timeframe
This agreement is effective from 1 June 2023 and does not apply to articles submitted, or accepted, for publication prior to that date. Every in-scope accepted manuscript from Swansea University is licensed with a CC-BY.
Implementation: Policy implemented July 1st, 2023.
'With effect from 1 July 2023, Swansea University researchers grant the University a non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, sub-licensable licence to make their peer-reviewed research and scholarly articles and book chapters publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence, (the Swansea OA Licence).
Making articles available in our institutional repository from the date of first online publication is our goal. This approach enables compliance with funder open access policies.
Opting out of the Research Publications Policy
The Swansea University policy applies from 01/07/2023. However, in exceptional circumstances it is permissible for research staff to opt out of the requirement for immediate open access upon publication, or the assignment of a CC-BY licence.
This action may cause the research output to be non-compliant with funder policies.
Circumstances where opt-out may be appropriate include:
Opt-out of the policy when the scholarly article is accepted for publication by completing the online form.
Go to the Opt-Out Form
1. What does the Swansea University (SU) Research Publications Policy do?
The research publication policy automatically enables staff and student researchers to retain copyright (and re-use rights) in their own work. It allows full and immediate open access for all funded and unfunded peer reviewed research articles, published in either a journal, conference proceeding or publishing platform. The policy also extends to book chapters.
Using the Research Publications Policy automatically permits the University to disseminate scholarly Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) with a Creative Commons CC BY Licence in Cronfa, without embargo. This applies from the date of first online publication. Under the policy, each author grants the university a non-exclusive, irrevocable, sub-licensable, worldwide licence. This policy limits publishers' control and prevents publishers requiring exclusive transfer or ownership of rights to the AAM.
2. Why do we need to act?
Funders and researchers are seeking to make research open access immediately on first publication and funders are embedding these requirements in contracts covering awards.
This policy helps you to assert your copyright and aligns with our ambition for Open Research. Immediate open access increases the reach and impact of our research.
The benefits of rights retention for authors:
Authors retain rights over their work and are empowered to share their research outputs more widely.
Authors can create new research by reproducing and building upon parts of their existing research. For example, figures or graphs from the accepted manuscript version.
Authors can use their published work in teaching activities.
3. How does rights retention work?
Authors should continue to upload the accepted manuscript document into the Research Information System (RIS) and follow the standard deposit workflow at the point of acceptance. The Library Research Support team will check the document and the record.
Example Rights Retention Statement
For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Language translations are available from the University of Edinburgh webpage, 'Translation of Rights Retention Statements'. Use if submitting an article to a foreign language journal.
4. What about working with collaborating authors?
It is the responsibility of SU authors in collaboration with co-authors to discuss the requirements of rights retention well before any research outputs are created, and ideally at the beginning of any proposed collaborations. We urge researchers not to wait until the point of submission to discuss rights retention.
This stipulation is a current UKRI funder requirement and now extends to all Swansea University funded research papers.
5. Opting out of the Research Publications policy
The Swansea University policy applies from July 2023. However, in exceptional circumstances it is permissible for research staff to opt out of the requirement for immediate open access upon publication, or the assignment of a CC BY licence. You may opt-out of the policy when the scholarly article is accepted for publication.
You must complete the online form.
This action may cause the research output to be non-compliant with funder policies.
6. Routes to Open Access (OA)
7. Creative Commons Licensing
Go to ‘Opting Out’ for information applicable to using another licence or applying a permanent restriction.
8. How do the funders feel?
9. What is the legal position?
'With effect from 1 July 2023, Swansea University researchers grant the University a non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, sub-licensable licence to make their peer-reviewed research and scholarly articles and book chapters publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence, (the Swansea OA Licence). Such a licence is granted by the copyright owner, being the University researcher concerned, and is binding on any successors in title to the researcher (all within the meaning of section 90(4) Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988). Accordingly, any and all rights of copyright granted to the publisher in respect of such works submitted for publication are granted subject always to the aforementioned licence. This non-exclusive licence applies to any research and scholarly publications authored or co-authored by the University researcher'.
Publishers cannot impose publication restrictions on an author under the terms of the Swansea OA Licence. We strongly recommend that researchers do not transfer intellectual property rights to publishers and use a rights retention statement as standard practice.
A list of UK institutions who have adopted a rights retention policy is available on the Open Access Directory.
10. How do the publishers feel?
Equitable and inclusive access to research must be acknowledged by the ecosystem.
If a publisher objects to this policy at the point off submission, the author may wish to note:
1. When during the publication process was any objection received?
2. What is the specific objection to?
3. Circumstances
11. Is support available for rights retention queries?
Contact Libraryresearchsupport@swansea.ac.uk
Additional Resources
Publisher Open Access Agreements: libguides.swansea.ac.uk/Research-Publishing/PublisherDeals
Rights Retention Videos and Tools: libguides.swansea.ac.uk/Research-Publishing
FAQ Version 1.1 September 2023 CR/RRS Project
IP for Research Toolkit
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Who is this for? This toolkit has been created with Vitae - the professional body within the UK developing researchers - to enable UK institutions to develop the intellectual property (IP) knowledge of their own researchers. This may be used by researcher developers, staff in technology transfer offices, academic supervisors, faculty or department heads and anyone else involved in UK research.It is important that all individuals involved in academia have an understanding of IP and are able to make informed decisions about the IP generated either by themselves or others.