School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

MPS - Publication Recording Policy

For REF purposes, we have an obligation to provide an institutional repository of papers.
To meet HEFCE's REF requirements on Open Access, all papers must be uploaded within 3 months of acceptance.

Upload to SRO

When your paper is accepted, send the following to mpsresearchsupport@sussex.ac.uk :

  1. A pdf copy of the accepted version of the paper. This can be your own word-processed manuscript.
  2. The names of the Sussex authors if not evident on the front of the paper.
  3. The main funder(s) of the research (please include the grant code if this is not mentioned in the acknowledgments of the paper).
  4. The date of acceptance.
  5. If you want the Output considered as a possible REF submission, send us your self-assessed SOR grading (see panel below).

We must upload publications to SRO within 3 months of Acceptance.  If the paper was accepted more than 3 months ago, but the Accepted version was uploaded to another database (such as ArXiV) within the 3 months, send us the details.  We will add this information to SRO to ensure open access compliance.

Later, when the paper is published, send us:

  1. The DOI.
  2. The date of publication.
REF grading

To help with the selection of papers for REF, we ask you to do the following.  (Please note this information will be held in confidence and used only by those directly involved with REF).

Provide a self-grading on a scale of 0 to 4 in each of the categories of Significance (S), Originality (O) and Rigour (R).  Some information on grading criteria can be found here: [ Maths Gradings ] [ Physics Gradings ].  You can supply comments on each of S, O, R, if you wish.

Viewing REF gradings for your research group

The REC will enter Outputs with their self-gradings onto a spreadsheet held on Box, one for each research group.  The spreadsheet is accessible to Research goup leads/coordinators and the Director of Research only.  To view the spreadsheet, log in here using your Sussex email address and ITS password. (Internet Explorer is not recommended, use another browser).  Contact the REC if you have problems.

Uploading your data

Your research sponsor may require your data be available on a public repository. 

For large datasets

The University has made the SURE database available. The software will be supported for the long term.  Large databases can be accommodated, ORCID linking is possible, and a DOI can be generated to include in your paper.

For small datasets

You can use either SURE, or you can upload to SRO if you prefer.  For SRO, an http address will be generated for you to use in your paper.

For SRO, send us

  • Your data as an Excel file or other format (usable: txt, rtf, doc, ps, html, bz2, tgz, zip, various image formats and others).
  • A copy of the paper.  If it is the submitted version (not yet accepted or published), then we cannot upload it to SRO - but the title, abstract etc can  be used to identify the dataset.

We will return to you an SRO link to include in your manuscript in the format http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/nnnnn

Send everything to:  mpsresearchsupport@sussex.ac.uk