A guide to accessing journal articles for those without access to university libraries
People working outside academia will sometimes want to read full-text journal articles, but unless they are associated with a university they usually won’t have easy access to journal databases. Research that could be useful to them is often hidden behind a paywall – or seems that way.
With the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST), which funds Radicalisation Research, we have written a guide summarising the ways in which it is possible to access full text journal articles for free (legally). It focuses on behavioural and social sciences, and the humanities (although is relevant to most disciplines).
Some of the places we have listed where you can find material include:
- Google scholar
- Author's websites
- ResearchGate
- Academia.edu
- Institutional repositories
For a full list and details to help make your searches effective download the guide here.
The guide will take 10 minutes to read.

This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.