A copy of this policy is also available as a PDF, and more information is available from the UCSF library.

Adopted May 21, 2012.

The Faculty of The University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) is committed to disseminating its research and scholarship as widely as possible, and as members of a public university system, is dedicated specifically to making its scholarship available to the people of California. Thus, the Faculty adopts the following policy:

For the purpose of open dissemination, each Faculty member grants to The Regents of the University of California, a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of his or her scholarly articles, in any medium, provided that the articles are not sold, and to authorize others to do the same. The policy applies to all scholarly articles authored or co-authored while the person is a member of the Faculty except for any articles completed before the adoption of this policy and any articles for which the Faculty member entered into an incompatible licensing or assignment agreement before the adoption of this policy. This policy does not transfer copyright ownership, which remains with Faculty authors under existing University of California policy. Application of the license will be waived for a particular article or access delayed for a specified period of time upon express direction by a Faculty member to the University of California.

To assist the University in disseminating scholarly articles, each Faculty member will provide an electronic copy of his or her final version of the article to the University of California by the date of publication. The University of California will make the article available in an open-access repository. When appropriate, a Faculty member may instead notify the University of California if the article will be freely available in another repository or as an open-access publication.

The Academic Senate and the University of California will be responsible for implementing this policy, resolving disputes concerning its interpretation and application, and recommending any changes to the Faculty. The Academic Senate and the University of California will review the policy within three years, and present a report to the Faculty.

The Faculty calls upon the Academic Senate and the University of California to develop and monitor a service or mechanism that would render implementation and compliance with the policy as convenient for the Faculty as possible