Rights Retention: Guiding Principles

by Sian Carr, Research Support Librarian.

Rights Retention, an open access strategy championed by cOAlitionS, has remained a topic of conversation throughout the UK higher education sector over the last twelve months. At time of writing at least 35 UK and 105 worldwide institutions have adopted or are working to adopt a Rights Retention strategy into their Open Access publishing policies. Experiential evidence has shown these strategies to be successful in their institutions, receiving little to no objection from publishers and support from some. However, the concept of Rights Retention is still fairly new within UK open access and there may be unforeseen factors to consider in the future.   

Cardiff University launched a Rights Retention pilot in November 2023 as part of Open Access week. Over the last year, there have been meetings with representatives from academic schools across Cardiff University to hear their preferences and concerns; with university leadership to understand the goals for the university and with colleagues from other universities to share experiences.  

The pilot is due to end next month and the pilot team is preparing for further work to refine a Rights Retention strategy that supports Cardiff University authors both in the present and future. To that end, a few guiding concepts have been crystalised to help fold Rights Retention into the open access strategies already in place. 

1. Rights Retention needs to simplify the open access process. The aspect of Rights Retention that seems to be of greatest interest to our authors is the possibility of simplification of open access. Currently, securing open access requires authors to understand a variety of specialised terms and publisher-specific requirements. Rights Retention has the potential to unlock a more efficient process for open access compliance, benefitting both academic authors and professional services. Development of a Cardiff University Rights Retention strategy will focus on emphasising that potential. 

1. Rights Retention must have flexibility to suit the complexities of international publishing. In the UK and around the world there is a significant push for open access publishing. However, the rights retention approach to open access publishing needs to have flexibility to take other situations into account. Author freedom to publish with certain co-authors, with specific publishers or with a different Creative Commons licence should not be compromised. Developing a Rights Retention policy must include options that allow authors to choose a publication strategy that best fits their work. 

1. Rights Retention may be most effective in the future and needs to be established as a precedent now. Read and Publish deals and Transformative agreements that allow a university’s authors to publish Gold open access have ballooned in price, often resulting in them taking up a significant part of library budgets. These deals are valuable but are reliant on negotiations and funding to support them. If this avenue for open access publishing becomes less viable in the future, having a strategy such as Rights Retention established may fill part of the void. 

If you have any questions about Rights Retention or would like to share your preferences, requirements, concerns or any other comments, please contact the Rights Retention project team at RightsRetention@cardiff.ac.uk.