Notice and Take-down policy

(Last reviewed April 2025)

The University of Oxford is committed to and encourages a culture of openness, transparency and collaboration in research. Through the Bodleian Libraries the Oxford University Research Archive ('ORA') has been developed so that users may access research outputs of the University.

Content made available via the ORA website is shared openly (see https://ora.ox.ac.uk/about) and may therefore be available, indexed, or referenced by other services (such as search engines and research publication aggregator services).

The notice and take-down policy applies to material made available on the ORA website (https://ora.ox.ac.uk/) only. ORA content made available or otherwise referenced or indexed via services outside of ORA are subject to their own terms and conditions and outside of ORA’s control.

Making a take-down request

If you are a rights holder or an interested party and are concerned that you have found material on the website that infringes your rights, please contact us. Please note that in some cases inclusion of material may be lawful without the authorisation of the rights holder or interested party. In order to make a take-down request please contact us in writing stating the following:

  • your contact detail and address;
  • full details of the material and when you found it (including URL(s));
  • the nature the issue and the reason for the take-down request;
  • proof that you are the rights holder and a statement that you are the rights holder or are an authorised representative of the rights holder.

On receipt of notification, the Notice and Take-down procedure is then invoked as follows:

  • The request will be acknowledged by email or by letter.
  • An initial assessment of the validity of the request will be made.
  • The resource may be removed, or access suspended pending verification of the request.
  • If we judge the request implausible or not to be valid, we will inform the requestor of this and our reasons, and the resource will be reinstated to the website if previously removed.

If the request is deemed valid based on UK law, we will remove or suspend access to the resource whilst we investigate the request in full. As part of this investigation:

  • where necessary we will seek professional legal advice on the request;
  • we will liaise with the person who deposited the resource in question (where relevant and possible), outline the nature of the request, and give them the opportunity to refute the request;
  • we will encourage the requestor and the depositor to resolve the issue to the satisfaction of both parties;
  • we will notify and liaise with other interested parties as deemed appropriate;
  • we will keep the requestor (and depositor as appropriate) informed of the actions we are taking/have taken.

If the investigation finds in the requestor’s favour, then the resource will be temporarily or permanently removed from public view, or replaced with an alternative version, as is agreed. The ORA item record(s), made up of the landing page of the material on the ORA website which describes the existence of the resource, will only be withdrawn from public view for reasons such as it being found to violate the legal rights of any person.

All requests will be investigated, although each request will be judged on its merits (for example in the case of serial, vexatious or spurious requests).

Contacting ORA

ORA contact details can be found at https://ora.ox.ac.uk/contact

Requests, and enquiries, will in the first instance be referred to the through the helpdesk to the appropriate service manager as required.



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