Skip to main content
It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.

Open Access

In Europe

  • The European Commission supports open access publishing "not as an end in itself but as a tool to facilitate and improve the circulation of information in the European Research Area and beyond". (Fact sheet: Open Access in Horizon 2020).
    All beneficiaries of Horizon Europe grants must deposit a machine-readable electronic copy of the published version or final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication in a subject or institutional repository. Open access must be allowed either through an OA or hybrid journal or in a repository within 6 months after publication (12 months for social sciences and humanities). APCs can be reimbursed, during the duration of the action. Beneficiaries must also provide open access to bibliographic metadata that identify the deposited publication.
  • cOAlition S and Plan S: on September 4th, 2018, Science Europe, an organization of European national funders (which includes the European Research Council), announces the launch of Plan S, built around this main principle: "By 2020 scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants provided by participating national and European research councils and funding bodies, must be published in compliant Open Access journals or on compliant Open Access Platforms." In May 2019, the start date has been delayed to January 2021.
     

In Switzerland

Swiss higher education institutions support open access. The Swiss National Science Foundation requires grantees to make their work open access as of 2020, either in the gold or the green road, possibly after an embargo period of 6 or 12 months. It also offers grants to cover APCs (Article-Processing Charges), to publish in gold OA journals. But it does not cover the costs of publication in "hybrid journals" (subscription journals with an OA option). The SNSF supports plan S, but "it is not in a position to add its signature to the plan at present." 

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