Self-Archiving Policy for Articles Published in MHRA Journals

See also the OA Portal, the OA Frequently Asked Questions page, and the Gallery of OA titles.

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Authors of works accepted for publication in MHRA journals may deposit their accepted manuscript (the version accepted after review but before copy-editing and typesetting) in their academic institution’s digital repository upon acceptance. Such a deposit must be closed access; full open access to the accepted manuscript is permitted no sooner than 12 months following publication of the work by the MHRA. This embargo period may be waived in either of the following circumstances:

1) when material has been produced as a result of funding from UKRI (AHRC) or other research funding bodies which have a stated requirement of open-access publication with no embargo;

2) when the author’s employer has an institutional policy requiring open-access deposit with no embargo.

Authors bound by such mandates may make the deposit of their accepted manuscript open access immediately on or after the official date of publication of the work by the MHRA. Request for zero-embargo deposit must be made to the MHRA before any such deposit is made.

This policy makes the following provisions:

  1. Any request for zero-embargo open-access self-archiving must be accompanied by proof of the applicable institutional or funder requirement.

  2. Requests for self-archiving can be made at any point in the production process, but should be made before deposit. Note that should such a request be made prior to acceptance it will not affect the process of peer review or whether the article is ultimately accepted for publication.

  3. The MHRA’s preference is for deposit in one repository only. An additional deposit may be made on the author’s personal or institutional website, providing the subsequent provisions of this policy are upheld. Commercial social media sites (e.g. ResearchGate, Academia.edu) are not considered to be personal websites.

  4. All deposits must include a full citation of the original publication, including the article DOI, and should link to the version of the article as published on Project Muse and/or to the details of the article on the MHRA website.

  5. Multiple articles from a single journal issue/volume may not be made open access on the same webpage (deposit in the same repository is permitted).

  6. In the case of co-authored articles where not all authors are subject to similar requirements, immediate open-access deposit is still permitted, subject to the other provisions of this policy.

  7. Authors are responsible for all third-party reproduction rights (e.g. for images): permission for open-access reproduction must have been obtained before the article is deposited. Where permission cannot be obtained, the third-party material must be removed from the article.

  8. All provisions of the MHRA Journals Contributor’s Publishing Agreement remain applicable.

Please direct any queries to mail@mhra.org.uk.

Policy created December 2023, revised April 2024.