Adopting and managing institutional rights retention policies

Background to the project

Rights retention is an opportunity for the sector to challenge the existing paradigm. Implementation of funders’ rights retention policies has prompted some academic institutions to take even stronger steps towards supporting their researchers to retain rights by adopting IRRPs. This project translated an anecdotal need for support for the sector into a clear description of where Jisc could play a role in this space.

Why this matters

Author rights retention is a means for researchers and universities to regain “academic sovereignty over the publishing process.” (EUA, 2022) Transferring the original copyright holders’ rights to a publisher usually means that the authors’ rights to use the article are severely limited. Rights retention enables authors to retain sufficient rights to their own article manuscript, and to reuse their content as they see fit, such as within teaching and their own academic networks.

An IRRP typically confirms that members of staff own the copyright to their scholarly works and grant a licence to the University to make the Author Accepted Manuscript available via their repository under a Creative Commons (CC BY) licence. This automatic grant of licence ensures that research findings can be made open access at the earliest opportunity. The policy typically covers research articles and conference papers but may include other output types. An IRRP typically covers all members of the institution, not just those with research funding awards.

Supporting IRRPs aligns with Jisc’s business purposes including our commitment to:

• Support open access publishing through the repository deposit route
• Develop forward-looking sector requirements that advance open research
• Empowering communities and encouraging conversations

What we did

We created a public problem space for the sector to comment. These problem space statements informed and shaped use cases that were then discussed, refined and prioritised to reflect sector need at a series of online focus groups attended by representatives from across all Jisc bands. The resulting validated and prioritised use cases formed the basis of a report which will inform decisions on whether to proceed further with the preparation and provision of support resources.

What we're working on now

We're now in the second phase of the project, and are currently engaged in discussions, both internally and with sector representatives, about how to take the project recommendations forward, and provide member higher education institutions with a range of information, support and guidance to implement and maintain an institutional rights retention policy.