SURE is an open-access repository of research outputs produced by members of the research community based at the University of Sunderland. It contains, but is in no way limited to, book chapters, monographs, artwork, journal articles, practice-based research, performances, reports, patents, and audio/ visual material.   

This brief guide will show you how to upload your research outputs to SURE. The guide uses a journal article as an example, but the process is similar for all research outputs.

• Include as much information about the output as you can - this will make it easier for readers to find.
• To be eligible for REF2029, you must upload the Author Accepted Manuscript to SURE within 12 weeks of its acceptance.
• Please upload a PDF of this document for articles, book chapters and conference proceedings.
• Files of up to 2GB can be uploaded to SURE.

If you have any questions about any aspect of the process, please get in touch at sure@sunderland.ac.uk.

When writing an article with one or more internal collaborators, only one of you needs to upload the record. Make sure that you discuss whose responsibility it will be to upload the item on SURE within the 12 weeks after acceptance for publication.

When writing with one or more external collaborators, you need to upload the item to SURE with the Author Accepted Manuscript or Version of Record if applicable.

There are often several versions of a manuscript submitted for publication to an academic journal.  These generally fall into one of three categories: 

• Submitted Version - the article you submit to the publisher, before the peer-review process takes place. Also called the Preprint
• Accepted Version - the article you re-submit to the publisher after making changes arising from the peer-review process. Also called Postprint
• Published Version - the article as it appears in print.

For your research to be eligible for REF2029, the Accepted Version (also called the Author Accepted Manuscript) must be attached to the record on SURE.  This version must be the document that has undergone peer-review, has been accepted for publication, but does not contain any material added by the publisher such as pagination or branding.  This version will often be a Microsoft Word document or similar: in terms of content it is identical to the published version, but it does not contain any formatting added by the publisher.

Source: Shafee, T. (2020). Typical publishing workflow for an academic journal article (preprint, postprint, and published) with open access sharing rights per SHERPA/RoMEO. Adapted from diagram by Ginny Barbour Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0 International)

If you need any further clarification, please get in touch.