Research Services: Pure

ePrints Soton is the University's Institutional Research Repository. It contains journal articles, books, PhD theses, conference papers, data, reports, working papers, art exhibitions and more. The University has a policy that all research is recorded in our institutional repository, and that Accepted Manuscripts are uploaded and made available where possible. ePrints Soton promotes research by making it available worldwide.

Records of research outputs are created in PURE and automatically pushed through to ePrints Soton once they have been through the validation process. PURE is the University's CRIS (Current Research Information System). 

When creating a Pure record for a research output that resulted from UKRI or Wellcome Trust funding, please ensure that the Author Accepted Manuscript file includes the Acknowledgement section showing you have applied Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) or Prior Assignment of Rights wording. This is how the institutional repository team will identify your paper as being in scope for the respective funder policy and can therefore ensure the correct settings are applied.

Please apply a CC BY licence to your Author Accepted Manuscript and add; "Funded by UKRI" or "Funded by Wellcome Trust" or your Rights Retention statement text to the ‘Bibliographic notes’ field.

For further details about the Rights Retention Strategy please see library.soton.ac.uk/openaccess/RRS

In the context of Pure

• A Research Output is a piece of research with a title that you disseminate, such as a journal article, a report or an exhibition
• An Activity is when you use your expertise as a researcher or subject expert in a more general way or in a way that is adjacent to your role at the university, for example organising a conference, being editor of a journal or consultancy work
• Press/Media is when an external media company features you and/or your research in a media publication for example your article is reported on in a newspaper or you are asked to be a featured expert on a subject by a news channel 

If you are unsure of which template you need please use the Pure template decider tool below

Some journals have specific pre-publication requirements (press and publicity restrictions or embargoes, including social media) such as the Nature journals, which may also extend to the bibliographic details of your paper. If you follow the procedure below you will be meeting your open access obligations for funders (including the REF) and abiding by the publishers rules.

This is what authors need to do, or if someone uploads to Pure on your behalf what you (the author) must make them aware of:

1. Create a Pure record and deposit the accepted manuscript of your accepted research output. Record as many dates as possible, especially the acceptance date.
2. If there is anything unusual about the record, or you know the anticipated publication date, make a note in the ‘Bibliographical Note’ field.
3. If in doubt, mark the embargo for the accepted manuscript files as ‘unknown’ when you attach them.
4. If the item needs to be ‘confidential’ (invisible) for a limited period (e.g. press embargo) email eprints@soton.ac.uk include:
   1. Author
   2. Title
   3. Short Pure ID (from the top left hand corner of the record, once it’s been saved)
   4. Short explanation of why you are contacting them – if setting visibility or embargo, make it clear why and what level of in/visibility is required
   5. Any key dates, such as when the record can be visible, or likely publication date so they can check for it
5. If in doubt, contact the ePrints team before proceeding.

Please note, the only date the ePrints team will set embargoes for is the epub date. This is the date when the article is made available on the journal website and enters the public domain.

For help or advice with any Pure outputs or institutional repository (ePrints Soton) query email eprints@soton.ac.uk or request an online appointment:

If you have any queries about depositing into Pure, please email eprints@soton.ac.uk

Also see the following guides:

• A guide for entering Activities, Prizes and Press/Media into Pure
• A guide for how to export your data out of Pure using the CV functionality
• A guide for creating content relationships in Pure

For guidance on how to select outputs for the REF Benchmarking exercise, please see the REF Benchmarking guide for Researchers on the Pure Sharepoint site.

For information about why publications may not be showing on your profile page, checking if a record has been validated in Pure and searching by co-author in Pure please see the Pure & Research Output FAQs.

Please note: during June/July 2023 we are reviewing the Library Core Service Offer to ensure it is clear and up to date. Please contact eprints@soton.ac.uk with any questions.