Open access policies of research funding organisations

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) published 2016 its policy “Open Access in Deutschland. Die Strategie des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung” and it maintains an information page about open access: http://www.bmbf.de/de/22905.php

Publications from BMBF-funded projects must either be published directly Open Access or be posted to an appropriate repository (such as our OPUS FAU) after the embargo period has expired. In contrast to other research funding organizations, the BMBF does not define the embargo period in any detail (for example within 6 months). The BMBF refers only to the legal foundations of § 38 (4) UrhG, which may apply after a period of 12 months, provided that the other criteria of the paragraph are fulfilled. The costs for open access publications have to be covered by the project funds, that means they must be calculated and included in the project application.

In addition, the BMBF offers funding options for open access publications from already completed BMBF-funded projects (“post-grant fund”), provided that the end of the funding period is not older than three years. You can get a 100% full reimbursement up to an amount of 2,000 euros net per publication; if the publication costs are larger than 2,000 euros net, 20% of the additional amount is subsidized. The maximum subsidy amount per publication is 2,400 euros net. Further details can be found at https://www.bmbf.de/foerderungen/bekanntmachung-1404.html and application form (last access February 2022).

In addition, there may also be regulations in individual funding guidelines. For example, the “Directive to Strengthen Research in Geriatrics and Gerontology” requires that the research data of the project will be made accessible (“open data”) and that the data will be saved at least 10 years after completion of the project. Details are available at https://www.bmbf.de/foerderungen/bekanntmachung-1267.html and http://www.dlr.de/pt/Portaldata/45/Resources/Dokumente/Leitfaden/Professuren_Altersforschung.pdf.

In January 2006 the DFG’s Joint Committee adopted a set of guidelines for the publication of results from DFG-funded projects on an open-access basis. These guidelines stipulate that “if possible”, recipients of DFG research grants should make their results available Open Access. The guidelines recommend publication in suitable open-access journals or the retroactive provision of previously published papers in open-access repositories (cf. DFG form 2.00).

This does not constitute an obligation and the DFG does not state any requirements with regard to mandatory long-term archiving in specific open access repositories.

Funding for publication of project results can be applied for as part of the project funding, although the maximum amount available per year is limited to 750 euros. This funding can also be used for open access publishing. There is no special funding available for open access publishing. The fixed publication funding may be saved up over the duration of a project a.d. if necessary, may be increased with funding reallocated from other projects.

+++ Horizon 2020 will be replaced with Horizon Europe (2021-2027) in the spring of 2021, more information can be found on this website and here +++

New: Research results from Horizon 2020-funded projects can be published via the Open Access publishing platform Open Research Europe. Articles, which have not been published elsewhere, undergo an open peer review, with the author being able to recommend reviewers of their choice. All article versions from pre-print to final version will be published via the platform and fulfil the ERC’s Open Access mandate. There are APCs of 780€ per article but these are covered in full by Horizon 2020 (FAQs).

All grants provided by the European Research Council (ERC) and as part of Horizon 2020 are subject to mandatory open access requirements. Binding clauses are included in the seven areas of the Seventh Framework Programme, Energy, Environment, Health, Information & Communication Technologies, Research Infrastructures, Science in Society and Socioeconomic Sciences & Humanities. Please check whether special clause 39 is included in the Grant Agreement.

For ERC projects, for Horizon 2020, and according to special clause 39 in the Seventh Framework Programme, the publication must be archived in an open access repository and made publicly available, either as the primary publication (the ‘golden road’ of open access) or as early as possible but at least within 6 months as the post-print or publisher’s version (the ‘green road’ of open access). An exception is made in the humanities and social sciences, where an embargo period of up to 12 months before archiving in an open access repository is permitted. Uploading the publication to a repository is always mandatory, even if you choose the ‘golden road’ of immediate open access publication. All metadata for publications must also be open access.

You may choose to use the University’s repository OPEN FAU. If you wish to use a subject-specific repository, the ERC recommends Europe PubMed Central for medical disciplines and arXiv for the sciences and disciplines of engineering. There are currently no ERC recommendations for the humanities and social sciences.

In general, the obligation also applies to books, chapters of books and similar which are based on the funded research. If you are planning such monographic publications, we recommend that you contact the project officer in advance.

Coverage of the expected publication costs for the golden road may be applied for explicitly. The maximum amount of funding for which you can apply (e.g. max. 1.5 million euros for the ERC Starting Grant) must not be exceeded. It is not possible to submit applications retrospectively, therefore the total costs of open access publishing in your subject must be estimated in advance. This may include fees for an open access option for journals which require a subscription, article processing charges for purely open access journals, the costs for a publishing plan for PeerJ, or the costs of an open access voucher from the Royal Society of Chemistry. An estimate of 1000 to 2000 euros per publication is not unrealistic.

If your publication is intended for a medium that does not meet the ERC requirements (i.e. does not allow primary open access publication or secondary publication in an open access repository within 6 months) but is highly relevant and has been cited, you can contact the project officer to see whether you may be granted an exemption. For the Seventh Framework Programme, if the requirements cannot be met, you must prove that best efforts have been made, e.g. written proof of negotiations with the publisher about open access approval. If a gold option that is subject to a fee is available, this must also be chosen in line with the ‘best effort’ principle.

The ERC guidelines are available at https://erc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/document/file/ERC_Open_Access_Guidelines-revised_feb_2016.pdf, the open access information for the Seventh Framework Programme can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/research/swafs/index.cfm?pg=policy&lib=pilot and the Horizon 2020 guidelines are available at http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/oa_pilot/h2020-hi-oa-pilot-guide_en.pdf. A comparative overview can also be found under https://erc.europa.eu/funding-and-grants/managing-project/open-access (accessed February 2019).

Horizon 2020 will be replaced with Horizon Europe (2021-2027) in the spring of 2021. There is an ongoing mandate to ensure open access to publications and research data arising from funded projects. In contrast with Horizon 2020, there is no longer an embargo period of 6-12 months for an article to be made Open Access. Immediate Open Access is required for all Horizon Europe-backed publications that have undergone a peer-review process.

For further information, please refer to the preliminary guides linked below:

New: Research results from Horizon Europe-funded projects can be published via the Open Access publishing platform Open Research Europe. Articles, which have not been published elsewhere, undergo an open peer review, with the author being able to recommend reviewers of their choice. All article versions from pre-print to final version will be published via the platform and fulfil the ERC’s Open Access mandate. There are APCs of 780€ per article but these are covered in full by Horizon Europe (FAQs).

Horizon Europe: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/eef524e8-509e-11eb-b59f-01aa75ed71a1/

Participating in Horizon Europe: Keeping it Simple: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/a1c3da18-01fe-11eb-974f-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-165855999

Portal Horizont Europa (in German): https://www.horizont-europa.de/index.php

The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) has mandatory open access guidelines.

The following open access guidelines apply to peer-reviewed articles published in scholarly journals, via open-access platforms, in edited volumes or conference proceedings stemming from FWF-funded projects which have been approved prior to 1. January 2021: https://www.fwf.ac.at/fileadmin/files/Dokumente/Open_Access/FWF_OAPublikationen_2019.pdf

Updated open access guidelines apply to peer-reviewed publications stemming from FWF-funded projects which have been approved after 31. December 2020:

Publication fee support

The FWF supports peer-reviewed open access articles with up to EUR 2500 on top of the project budget. If publishing fees exceed this sum, the difference may be covered by the authors or an existing FWF project budget granted before the new regulations came into effect. Applications for support with these publication fees can be made up to three years after completion of the project, provided open access guidelines are being observed.

Coverage of publication fees for books, proceedings and anthologies can be requested up to EUR 22.000, provided they are published fully open access. New digital formats such as apps, databases and wiki-platforms can also be funded up to EUR 50.000, provided they are published fully open access.

Publication fees that are not directly related to open access (such as subsidies for exceeding page number limits, colour pages and figures, submission fees, membership fees, etc.) will not be covered by the FWF. To cover these fees, it is suggested that authors either submit to alternative publishers or use their own budgets or prior FWF budgets.

Open Access Guidelines

The publication must be made publicly available, either as the primary publication published in a DOAJ listed journal under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license or otherwise made accessible as the post-print or publisher’s version via an open access repository immediately following the original publication (no embargo) and under a CC-BY or comparable open license. The chosen repository must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories.

Hybrid open access (subscription journals with a paid open access option) is also viable in cases where there is a transformative agreement between the publisher and the FWF and/or an Austrian research institution. Authors can also publish in journals considered transformative as per the Plan S definition. Articles must be published under a CC-BY or comparable open license.

Please use the cOAlition S journal checker tool to check whether your chosen journal complies with the FWF open access policy or contact us via ub-open-access@fau.de.

In any case, publications must be archived additionally in a repository to ensure long-term access. We recommend using our institutional repository OPUS FAU; for Life Sciences and related subjects the FWF requires self-archiving via Europe PubMed Central. Project leaders affected by this stipulation will be contacted directly by Europe PubMed Central via e-mail.

Independent publications (books or similar) funded by the FWF must also be deposited as an openly accessible electronic copy to the FWF e-book library.

Efforts to achieve open access and compliance with the open access policy must be demonstrated in the final report to the FWF including persistent identifiers (DOI, PubMed Central ID or similar). The following acknowledgment must be included in every presentation and/or publication:

„This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [Grant number]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.“³

The FWF’s open access policy is available here.

The FWF’s open data policy is available here.

(Feb 2021)

As of October 2013, recipients of funding from the Helmholtz Association’s Initiative and Networking Fund are required to make publications which result from the funded projects open access.

The publication must be made publicly available, either as the primary publication published  within an Open Access journal  (the ‘golden road’ of open access) or otherwise archived at the earliest possible date, at the latest within 6 months as the post-print or publisher’s version in an open access repository (the ‘green road’ of open access). An exception is made in the humanities and social sciences, where an embargo period of up to 12 months before archiving in an open access repository is permitted. If the golden road (primary publication) is chosen, the publication must also be archived in an open access repository at the date of publication. A list of the Helmholtz repositories can be found here: https://os.helmholtz.de/open-science-in-der-helmholtz-gemeinschaft/open-access-der-gruene-weg/#c2537. So-called hybrid journals should be avoided.

The bibliographic data for publications must permit a reference to be made to the funded project.

If important reasons are presented, an exemption from open access publication may be granted. The Helmholtz Association must be notified of these reasons as soon as possible after the author has become aware of them.

The Helmholtz Association’s information sheet is available at http://www.helmholtz.de/fileadmin/user_upload/01_forschung/2013-10-14_OA-Richtlinie-IVF.pdf (German only) (last access February 2021).

As of 2016, the open access policy applies not only to publications by recipients of funding from the Initiative and Networking Fund but to all publications by employees of the Helmholtz Association.

Here too, the above criteria must also be considered. Furthermore, in accordance with the new policy, book publications must also be made available through archiving in an open access repository within 12 months (24 months for the humanities and social sciences). Where possible, a centre’s in-house publications must be made open access on the centre’s repository under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence. Research data should also be accessible and reusable.

The Helmholtz Association’s open access policy is available at http://os.helmholtz.de/open-science-in-der-helmholtz-gemeinschaft/open-access-richtlinien/open-access-richtlinie-der-helmholtz-gemeinschaft-2016/ (German only) (last access February 2021).

As of 2008, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) require the post-print or publisher’s version of a peer-reviewed journal article to be archived and made available in the PubMed Central open access repository within 12 months after publication if the research was funded by the NIH. This policy only applies to articles in journals and publication series with a peer review procedure; books, chapters of books, dissertations and similar are not subject to the regulation.

The NIH policy is available at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm (last access February 2021).

The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) has binding regulations on open access.

The publication must be archived in an open access repository and made publicly available, either as the primary publication (the ‘golden road’ of open access) or at least within 6 months as the post-print or publisher’s version (the ‘green road’ of open access). For book publications and editions an embargo period of up to 12 months before archiving in an open access repository is permitted.

The costs of publishing in peer-reviewed open access journals (golden road), up to a maximum of CHF 3000 per publication, may be explicitly covered by the SNSF grant. Costs may also be covered for books, providing that the publisher makes them available through the golden road of open access.

• The SNSF covers the publisher’s services with an amount of CHF 5000 (basic grant), provided the services are set out in a binding agreement between the publisher and the author.
• The lump sum for doctoral theses and habilitations has been fixed at CHF 8000; if this lump sum is not sufficient to cover the publication costs, additional support may be requested.
• The base contribution for a Open Access book publication with up to 750.000 characters (including spaces) is CHF 15,000; additional funds may be available if the book has a larger number of characters, requires more effort for layout and rights clearance, if the book has enriched e-book functionalities (such as interactive or audio and video content), or if additional costs are incurred for the translation.

The regulations can be found under http://www.snf.ch/SiteCollectionDocuments/Anhang_II_Ausfuehrungsreglement_Beitragsreglement.pdf, http://www.snf.ch/SiteCollectionDocuments/Reglement-ueber-OA-Publikationsfoerderung-D.pdf and http://www.snf.ch/SiteCollectionDocuments/leitfaden_foerderung_oa_buchpublikationen_de.pdf (last access February 2021).

Open access costs for journal special issues, conference proceedings, commerative publications, new editions without additional research results, translations or collector’s editions are excluded.

If open access publication is not an option for legal reasons, the researchers must apply for exemption.

This SNSF regulation can be found at https://oa100.snf.ch/de/foerderung/ and http://www.snf.ch/de/foerderung/dokumente-downloads/Seiten/default.aspx#Rechtsgrundlagen (last access February 2021).

As of April 2013, the Wellcome Trust mandates open access for all peer-reviewed research publications funded by the Wellcome Trust. Editorials, letters, proceedings and reviews are not subject to this mandate.

The following regulations apply to original research articles (funded partially or in full by the Wellcome Trust) which are submitted after 1. January 2021:

Articles published in subscription journals have to be made accessible via PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC by the “Final Publication Date” at the latest.

Articles have to be made available under a CC-BY License (in exceptional, pre-agreed cases a CC-BY-ND License is acceptable)

Articles published in subscription journals must include the following statement in order to ensure that grantholders can continue to publish in any journal they choose while still complying with the principles of Plan S:

‘This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust [Grant number]. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.’

All research articles supported in whole, or in part, by Wellcome must include a statement explaining how other researchers can access any data, original software or materials underpinning the research. For these purposes, Wellcome has issued a data, software and materials management and sharing policy.

The Wellcome Trust open access policy stipulates that articles should preferably be published in fully Open Access journals or in subscription journals which are covered by a transformative agreement (such as Project DEAL in Germany). Here you can find a summary of routes of compliance.

As of October 2013, all academic book publications must be archived in PMC Bookshelf and Europe PubMed Central and made publicly available within 6 months. If publication incurs book processing charges (gold route) the book publication must be published open access immediately under a Creative Commons licence without an embargo. The Wellcome Trust recommends the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence for this purpose but also accepts non-commercial licences such as the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC) licence or the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) licence. Book publications should be registered via openaccess@wellcome.ac.uk.

The current Wellcome Trust open access policy is available here, alongside a policy guide (last reviewed February 2021). Non-compliance with the policy can be penalised by the rejection of future grant proposals a.d. in extreme cases, withdrawal of funding already obtained.