Open Access

• The European Commission wants Open Science to become "the modus operandi for all researchers". (Fact sheet: Open Science in Horizon Europe).
  Horizon Europe requires immediate Open Access to all publications. (Open Science in Horizon Europe)
• cOAlition S: this is an alliance of funders (mostly European and North American) who have committed themselves to common principles, formalised in a "Plan S": immediate open access for all publications by their grantees, and the less restrictive Creative Commons licence, the CC BY licence. The SNF is a member of this coalition.

Swiss higher education institutions support Open Access. According to the Swiss National Strategy on Open Access, adopted in 2017, all publicly funded research in Switzerland should be open access by 2024.

The Swiss National Science Foundation requires its grantees to make their work Open Access since 2020. It also offers grants to cover APCs (Article Processing Charges) for publication in full OA journals. However, it does not cover the costs of publication in "hybrid journals" (subscription journals with an OA option). From February 2024, it will also no longer fund open-access articles in special issues, due to the large increase in these issues and the "inconsistent" publication processes that contribute to the "publish or perish" culture.

As of January 1st, 2023, the SNF has joined Plan S. This means that researchers funded by the SNF must publish their journal articles Open Access immediately, and there is no longer any possibility of an embargo period. The CC BY licence is required for journal articles. The SNF applies the Rights Retention Strategy of Plan S: "on submitting the manuscript, researchers reserve the right to make it freely available with immediate effect under a CC-BY licence, citing their commitment to the SNSF". For books and book chapters, the maximum embargo period is 12 months.