GW4 Joint Statement Rights Retention in Scholarly Works

"The GW4 Universities—Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, and Exeter—have long-standing commitments to Open Access, underpinning the positive economic and social impact of our research within an inclusive research culture and environment. To this end, our library teams have worked together to develop a shared position and joint statement on Rights Retention. It is a marker of our collaborative commitment and our broader intention to work together to strengthen the UK research environment. Rights Retention is intended to provide academics with greater control over the rights in their own scholarly works. It does this by: • providing routes to open access publishing which are inclusive and contribute to a positive research culture • strengthening sector positions in negotiations with scholarly publishers • mitigating the risks of non-compliance with the terms of grant agreements • minimising workload and bureaucracy for authors."