1. Open access, embargoes and your thesis
Camilla Briault Head of Research Student Administration

2. Free and open access to publicly-funded research offers significant social and economic benefits. The Government, in line with its overarching commitment to transparency and open data, is committed to ensuring that such research should be freely accessible. As major bodies charged with investing public money in research, the Research Councils take very seriously their responsibilities in making the outputs from this research publicly available – not just to other researchers, but also to potential users in business, charitable and public sectors, and to the general public RCUK policy on open access

3. The University supports the principles of open access, as being a means to enable the widest access to its research, and hence the best chance of the results being used, both within and outwith the academy. The University has had a mandate since August 2011 for its researchers (staff and postgraduate research students) to record publication metadata and to deposit (where possible and permitted by the copyright owner) the content of all peer-reviewed research and related outputs. The location for that record and content is Sussex Research Online (SRO). University of Sussex statement on open access to research

4. On the successful completion of your examination, you are required to submit one electronic (pdf) copy of your thesis or portfolio. In line with the University’s policies on open access the electronic copy of your thesis will be used to allow public access to your thesis via the University’s Institutional Repository, Sussex Research Online. The electronic copy of your thesis will also be uploaded to the Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS) run by the British Library. This service offers free access to the full text of UK theses, allowing your research to be made available to the wider scholarly community more easily. The thesis will be free to download, although the requestor may opt to pay for a print copy or a copy on CD. You will be asked to complete an EThOS deposit form upon submitting your thesis.

5. There may be valid reasons for restricting access to your thesis for a limited period. Below are some common reasons why you may need to restrict access to your thesis: You intend to publish all or part of your thesis; You are applying for a patent; Your thesis contains commercially sensitive information that may prejudice the commercial interests of another person or company; Your thesis contains material that was obtained under a promise of confidentiality; Your thesis contains sensitive material about an individual or individuals that may endanger their physical or mental well-being. Embargoes

6. You intend to publish all or part of your thesis; 2 years maximum Your thesis contains commercially sensitive information that may prejudice the commercial interests of another person or company; 3 years maximum You are applying for a patent 3 years maximum Your thesis contains material that was obtained under a promise of confidentiality; 3 years maximum Your thesis contains sensitive material about an individual or individuals that may endanger their physical or mental well-being. 3 years maximum If your research has been funded by one of the Research Councils, the maximum embargo period permitted by them is one year

7. While you are permitted to use third party material in a thesis for the purposes of examination, you do not automatically have permission to make these materials freely available online. Before submitting the electronic copy of your thesis, you should check that you are able to use any third party material e.g. photographs, images, diagrams, maps and long extracts from other works. Every attempt should be made, at the earliest opportunity, to gain permission from the rights holder to include such material. All permission should be obtained in writing and an electronic copy of the correspondence should be submitted along with the electronic copy of your thesis. Copyright

8. If you are unable to obtain copyright clearance for images or text used in your thesis, you may put all of this material into a separate volume which will be permanently embargoed Volume 1 of your thesis (the text you have written) will then be available on open access via SRO as usual, unless you have applied for a limited embargo for another reason Copyright

9. If your thesis is in the form of a number of papers rather than a monograph, you need to think carefully about copyright and about author permissions and journal embargo periods. Papers-style thesis

10. If an embargo is approved, your thesis will not be available for public access online; however, metadata will be created citing the author and the title which will be visible in both SRO and in EThOS. At the end of the approved embargo period the embargo will be lifted automatically unless a request for an exceptional further embargo period is approved.

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