Launched on 30 November 2023, the University invites its researchers to sign up for the Rights Retention Pilot, which runs until 30 June 2024. Bath researchers can participate by submitting the opt-in form. Feedback from the pilot will inform the development of an institutional Rights Retention Policy.

Rights retention policies have already been adopted by many UK universities, including: Imperial College London; King's College London; University of Bristol; University of Edinburgh; and University of Oxford. The University of Bath also aims to encourage and support all sustainable routes to open access.

Traditionally, most publishers have claimed rights over publications in their standard publishing contracts; rights retention enables authors to retain sufficient rights to their accepted manuscripts so that they can reuse their content as they see fit.

Significantly, it allows authors to disseminate their work as widely as possible while also meeting funder and future REF requirements. So, if you are unable to publish your work open access through a paid route, rights retention allows you to make your accepted manuscript open access by uploading it to Pure without embargo and with the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence applied.

Please see the Rights Retention Pilot flyer or contact openaccess@bath.ac.uk for more details