For advice relating to publications, author's accepted manuscript and SRO, please contact
sro@sussex.ac.uk
For advice relating to using Elements to create publication records, please contact
elements@sussex.ac.uk
To comply with REF 2029's Open Access policy, you need to create publication record in Elements and deposit this record to SRO (the University of Sussex's institutional repository) along with the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM). This is the version after peer review but before any typesetting or copyediting is done by the publisher.
To ensure REF eligibility, it’s best to create and deposit this publication record as soon as possible after acceptance. The timeframes for REF 2029 are as follows:
For outputs published before December 31st 2025- Deposit to SRO within three months of acceptance.
For outputs published after December 31st 2025- Deposit to SRO within three months of publication.
Note: Articles due to be published Gold Open Access should still be deposited to SRO.
More information on REF 2029's Open Access policy, including scope, exceptions and embargo periods is available from our website.
To satisfy REF 2029 and funder Open Access policies, create a manual publication record for research outputs which have been accepted for publication, and deposit the publication record to SRO with your author's accepted manuscript within 3 months of the acceptance date
1. Select +ADD NEW from the Publications box on your Elements homepage
2. Select the publication type from the list displayed
3. Complete the form with as many details as you can about your publication - author, status, title, co-authors, journal title, date of acceptance, abstract. You can link a publication to one of the university's research groups at this stage
4. Save the record
5. Use the next screen to link the publication to grants or select the option Grant not listed or Not externally funded to skip this screen
6. Attach your author's accepted manuscript by selecting Choose file and uploading your file. Select the file version from the dropdown menu, then select Deposit. To deposit your publication record to SRO without attaching a manuscript, select Deposit Without Files.
7. You can now view the completed publication record. The SRO repository team will review the publication record and contact you if they have any questions.
We recommend that you upload the author's accepted manuscript, sometimes referred to as a 'postprint', with your record. This is the version after peer-review but before any layout or copyediting work is completed by the publisher and most publishers allow this version to be uploaded to an institutional repository, often with an embargo period. With a few exceptions, publishers do not allow the use of the final published version, unless Gold Open Access has been paid for.
The AAM is the version required as a minimum to fulfil a number of funder Open Access requirements. The document should be free from comments, highlighting or tracked changes and can be in Word or PDF format. If you have any questions regarding which version of a manuscript you should upload, please contact the SRO team at sro@sussex.ac.uk.
Elements will locate your already published publications from external data sources using various identifiers and will pull publication details into your pending publications list, where you can claim or reject them as required. Once you have claimed a publication record, deposit the record to SRO with the accepted manuscript attached. This is the version of the article after peer review but prior to any copyediting or layout work being completed by the publisher.
1. Select View All from the Publications box on your Elements home page. A floating bar at the top of the screen will indicate if you have any Claimed/ Pending or Rejected publications
2. Select Pending
3. Click on a title and check the record. If appropriate, select Claim to claim the record and add the publication to your publications list.
4. To add any missing information, or change incorrect information, select +. Save the record.
5. The publication record can now be deposited to SRO. Scroll down the screen and select the blue DEPOSIT button.
6. Attach your author's accepted manuscript by selecting Choose file and upload your file. Select the file version from the dropdown menu, then select Deposit. To deposit your publication record to SRO without attaching a manuscript, select Deposit Without Files.
7. You can now view the completed publication record. The SRO repository team will now review the publication record and contact you if they have any questions.
Note. Elements is not able to retrieve details of publications which have been accepted and not yet published. Accepted papers should be added to Elements manually - see above.
1. Select VIEW ALL from the Publications box on your Elements home page
2. Scroll down the filters on the right side of the screen and select Awaiting deposit from the Repository status dropdown menu.
3. You will now see a list of publication records which have not yet been deposited to SRO. Select the blue DEPOSIT button to upload a file and deposit the publication record to SRO