Trade book exemption from REF open access rules confirmed

Proposed new open access rules for the UK’s next Research Excellence Framework have been clarified after an outcry over the apparent removal of an exemption for trade books that many scholars feared would kill off popular academic titles.

Under new guidelines proposed on 18 March, any scholarly monographs and other long-form outputs submitted to the REF 2029 would have to be made freely available within two years of publication. Unlike the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) open access requirements for books, which took effect in January, there was no clear exemption for trade books that seek to engage a popular audience beyond academia.

Instead, the consultation stated that exceptions could be made if “the only appropriate publisher, after liaison and consideration, is unable to offer an open access option that complies with the REF policy” – a wording that could have applied to more mainstream publishers that do not offer open access options to authors, although some academics feared that they would need to argue this on a case-by-case basis.

The removal of trade books from the list of exceptions sparked fury online, with several university historians claiming that the need to make titles free to read within two years would make it far more difficult for academics to get published, given that books would face a two-year sales window.

The lack of an clear exemption was described on Twitter/X as “crazy”, “stupid” and “ridiculous”, with Manchester Metropolitan University historian Catherine Fletcher telling Times Higher Education that the “treatment of trade and crossover books [was] causing a lot of anxiety” and that “UKRI needs to be explicit that it values all these contributions rather than starting from the assumption that open access is the one-size-fits-all answer”.

In a clarification published on 19 March, however, the REF organisers confirmed that trade books are “generally excluded from open access requirements” and that “this exemption will also be applied for any requirement for REF 2029, as will be the case for creative works”.

The new guidance drew attention to UKRI’s open access policy, which defines a trade book as “an academic monograph or edited collection rooted in original scholarship that has a broad public audience”.

Trade books were generally directed towards “the broader public and not primarily an academic audience”, with other considerations including whether “marketing activities…seek to reach a broad public readership”, whether sales and pricing models offered large discounts to retailers and whether the book was distributed outside normal scholarly channels.

Rory Cormac, professor of international relations at the University of Nottingham, welcomed what he said was “quite a clarification”.

“It’s very welcome, though,” said Professor Cormac, who had previously warned that commercial publishers would not agree to a 24-month rule, “especially if paperbacks come out between 12 and 18 months after [a hardback publication]”.

“It’s about more than about authors’ incomes,” he continued. “It’s about valuing and encouraging the important principle of public engagement.”

The proposed policy would not apply to outputs published before the start of 2026 or titles that had publication agreements in place before that date.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com