IRRP implementation in practice: an Open Research Scotland collaboration

Abstract

At a time when five Scottish universities have run their institutional rights retention policies (IRRPs) for at least a year (if often for much longer) and five additional ones are planning to pass their own policies in the course of 2025, it’s a good moment for a cross-institutional discussion on the various technical areas that would benefit from some level of consensus. Several key areas were addressed during the Open Research Scotland-held “IRRP implementation in practice” session on 16 January 2025. The paper provides a summary of the discussions, together with some institutional best practices identified during the session and some thoughts on how the application of rights retention could result in more visibility for research publications. It is expected that the discussion could serve as a source of inspiration for other networks dealing with rights retention policy implementation such as the N8 Research Partnership or the Great Western Alliance (GW4) member institutions.