Policies and mandates

The Open Access for UQ Research Publications Policy sets out the requirements for UQ researchers to make research publications open access (OA) via UQ’s institutional repository, UQ eSpace, as soon as possible following acceptance of the publication and complying with  restrictions imposed by funding bodies and publisher. 

Explore the Open Access for Research Publications Guideline to find information on best practices for making research publications OA and more resources and support.

Complying with funding mandates

The Australian Research Council (ARC), the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) have open access policies.

ARC

The ARC Open Access Policy applies to grant schemes opening from 1 July 2026 and has several requirements including peer reviewed versions of:

  • journal articles and conference papers to be openly accessible immediately upon publication with a Creative Commons CC BY license (unless exceptions apply under 4.5 of the ARC Open Access Policy)
  • monographs, edited volumes, book chapters and research reports to be openly accessible as soon as possible and within 12 months of publication
  • creative works (are encouraged) to be made openly accessible where possible.

Making preprints openly available does not meet the requirements of the ARC Open Access Policy.

Open Access requirements for ARC grants before 1 July 2026 will be based on a previous version of the open access policy as specified in the grant guidelines. If no version is specified in the grant guidelines, version 2021.1 is applicable and requires:

  • open access to the post-peer-review version (Author accepted manuscript/post-print or a publisher's version) within 12 months of publication
  • the publication details to be available in UQ eSpace within 3 months of publication.

If your publications do not comply with the requirements, you will need to provide an explanation in your final report (4.2 of the ARC Open Access Policy).

NHMRC and MRFF

The NHMRC and MRFF Open Science Policy requires:

Pathways to open access has more information on how to comply with these mandates.

Networking sites (e.g. ResearchGate, Academia.edu) are not usually considered acceptable repositories for achieving open access as they do not provide appropriate support for long-term storage and open licensing.

Other funding agencies 

If you have funding from another funding agency, check your funding agreement. Other funders (e.g. Wellcome Trust or Horizon Europe) have more onerous OA compliance requirements.

Use Journal Search to identify journals with compatible open access options, including journals that are covered or have a discount on Article Processing Charges (APC) under a UQ open access publishing agreement.

Policies and procedures

UQ policies

Other related policies