Can I Upload My Paper to ResearchGate Legally?

Writing the paper does not mean you can post every version of it. The version, the licence and the agreement you signed decide what goes public.

Guide · 9 min read · Directive Publications Editorial Team

The short answer depends on two things

You wrote the paper, so posting it feels like your call. Legally, it depends on two things: which version of the paper you are holding, and which rights you kept when you signed the publishing agreement.

• Open access articles. If the published article carries an open licence such as CC BY, you can usually post the publisher's PDF on ResearchGate or Academia.edu, as long as you meet the licence's attribution terms.
• Subscription articles. If you transferred copyright or granted the publisher an exclusive licence, the publisher's PDF usually cannot go up publicly. You may still be allowed to post an earlier version, sometimes only after an embargo, or to store the file privately.

ResearchGate is direct about this. Its copyright guidance says many publishers do not allow the version of record to be shared publicly at any time, even though you are the author, and that you are responsible for any content you upload or share.

Why academic social networks have their own rules

ResearchGate and Academia.edu are commercial networking sites, not repositories, and publisher policies often treat them as a separate location. Jisc's Open Policy Finder, the database many libraries use to check journal sharing policies, defines "academic social network" as its own location type and gives ResearchGate and Academia.edu as the examples. A policy that lets you post your accepted manuscript in an institutional repository does not, by that alone, let you post it on ResearchGate.

Publishers also name the sites directly, and they do not all agree:

• Elsevier's article sharing policy says a subscription article's published version cannot be shared publicly, "for example, on ResearchGate or Academia.edu." Its accepted-manuscript rules allow immediate posting on a non-commercial personal homepage, but commercial sites only after the embargo and only where Elsevier has an agreement with the site.
• Taylor & Francis's guidance on sharing article versions allows the accepted manuscript on scholarly collaboration networks such as ResearchGate, but says embargoes usually apply to articles that are not open access. It gives typical periods of 12 months for its science, technology and medicine journals and 18 months for social sciences and humanities, counted from first online publication.

Those are two publishers, not a rule for all. Your journal's own policy is what applies.

Publishers have also enforced these rules in court. ACS and Elsevier pursued litigation against ResearchGate in Germany and the United States, which the parties resolved in a settlement announced in September 2023. Under it, ResearchGate checks rights information for ACS and Elsevier articles at the point of upload and decides how each one can be shared on the site.

What you can usually post, version by version

Two details catch authors out. First, permission to post a preprint does not automatically cover replacing it with later text. Elsevier, for example, lets you update a preprint with the accepted manuscript only on arXiv or RePEc, so swapping the file on your ResearchGate preprint is a separate question. Second, embargoes run from publication, not from acceptance or upload.

If you are unsure which file you are holding, our guide to preprints, accepted manuscripts and versions of record shows how to tell them apart.

Open access articles: usually the easy case

The Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence lets anyone copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, provided they give appropriate credit, link to the licence and indicate any changes. If your article is published under CC BY, uploading the published PDF to ResearchGate or Academia.edu fits those terms. Keep the licence statement and the DOI on the file.

Three situations need a second look:

• Non-commercial licences. CC BY-NC and CC BY-NC-ND limit commercial use, and both networks are commercial businesses. Read the journal's sharing policy rather than assuming either way.
• Who holds copyright. In some open access journals authors keep copyright; in others the author grants the publisher an exclusive licence with its own limits. The agreement you signed says which. Our guide to copyright transfer versus licensing explains how to read it.
• Third-party material. A figure reproduced with permission from another source may not be covered by the article's licence, even when the rest of the article is.

Directive Publications journals publish articles under CC BY 4.0 and authors retain copyright, as set out on the For Authors page, so the published version can be shared, including on academic social networks, with proper attribution.

How to check before you upload

1. Identify the version you hold. Submitted version, accepted manuscript, or the publisher's version of record. A typeset PDF with the journal's layout and page numbers is the version of record.
2. Find the article's licence. Look on the published article page for a Creative Commons licence. If there is one, its terms usually settle the question.
3. Read your publishing agreement. Check whether you kept copyright, granted an exclusive licence, or transferred copyright, and which sharing rights the agreement gives back to you.
4. Look up the journal's sharing policy. Use Open Policy Finder or the publisher's author rights page. For your version, check whether "academic social network" or another location that covers commercial sites is listed, whether an embargo applies, and what conditions are attached. Treat the summary as a starting point and the agreement as the deciding document.
5. Choose public, private or link-only. Post publicly only what the policy allows. Otherwise use one of the routes in the next section.
6. Add a statement and the DOI. Put a short note on the first page so readers know what they have, for example: "This is the accepted manuscript of an article published in [Journal] on [date]. The version of record is available at [DOI link]." Use the publisher's wording if its policy supplies one.

Public, private, or just a link

If public posting is not allowed, you still have legitimate options.

Store the file privately. ResearchGate lets you keep a full text private, visible only to you and your co-authors. Its help pages note that even when you cannot share work publicly, you may still be permitted to store a private copy for your own use and your co-authors' access. Check that your agreement allows it.

Answer requests individually. When someone requests your full text, ResearchGate offers three responses: share publicly, send a private copy, or ignore the request. It says you must confirm you have sufficient rights before sharing either way. Some publishers allow limited private sharing; Elsevier, for example, allows authors to give copies of the accepted manuscript to students or research collaborators for their personal use. Check your own publisher's terms.

Share a publisher link. Some publishers provide sharing links designed for this. Springer Nature's SharedIt links give a view-only version of the article and, according to Springer Nature, can be posted anywhere, including on scholarly collaborative networks. Taylor & Francis gives each author an eprint link that can be used up to 50 times.

Check whether the publisher got there first. Some publishers send the version of record to ResearchGate themselves through partnership agreements. Open access articles added this way are available to everyone, and subscription articles to members whose institutions subscribe. If your paper is already there, you may not need to upload anything.

A network upload is not a repository deposit

Posting on ResearchGate does not usually satisfy a funder or institutional open access requirement. Funder mandates generally name repositories. For NIH-funded work, PubMed Central is the designated repository, and NIH-funded articles accepted for publication on or after 1 July 2025 must be available there without embargo from the official date of publication.

The practical route is to deposit the required version in the repository your funder or institution specifies, then add the publication to your ResearchGate or Academia.edu profile with a link to that copy. Readers find you on the network and reach a copy you are allowed to share. Our guide to self-archiving in a repository walks through the deposit.

Medical papers: two extra checks

Patient images and case details. If the paper includes identifiable patient photographs, imaging or case details, the consent you obtained describes where the material may appear. If you are unsure whether an additional copy on a networking site fits within it, ask the journal editor or your ethics office before posting.

Permissions granted for the journal only. If you reproduced a figure, scale or table from another publication, the permission may have been granted for the journal article alone. Confirm it covers a copy elsewhere, or replace the item with a citation in the version you post.

If a takedown notice arrives

ResearchGate says it removes content when a copyright owner submits an infringement notice that follows the proper procedure, and that repeat instances may lead it to restrict or permanently lock your account. It also says it cannot see individual licence agreements or assess whether a claim is valid.

If a notice arrives, do not re-upload the same file. Replace it with a version your policy allows, store it privately if that is permitted, or link to the published article. If the article is openly licensed and you believe the notice is mistaken, contact the publisher with the licence details.

Before you click upload

1. You know which version the file is
2. You have checked the article page for an open licence
3. You have read your publishing agreement
4. The journal's policy lists academic social networks, or another location that covers them, for this version
5. Any embargo has ended, counted from publication
6. Third-party figures and patient consent cover a copy on this site
7. The first page names the version and links to the DOI
8. Any funder or institutional deposit is done separately