Open Science has become an integral part of the funding schemes in the past years. For this, we must ensure that the knowledge from projects is not lost and can be reused in the future. What does that mean actually? Basically, you are asked to look after the data, software, publications you might produce in a European project and describe measures on how you preserve them and make them open to the public.
After presenting data management plans last quarter, we explore open access to publications as part of this short series about Open Science in EU projects.
All peer-reviewed scientific publications arising from European Commission funding have to be made available in open access immediately upon publication, with no restrictions on use and with the author retaining the copyright. It means that the published version or the final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication should be made available without embargo either in a repository or on the publisher website.
In order to comply with those requirements, authors can benefit from dedicated publication funds in the EC grant, those funds can only cover fees for articles published in fully Open Access journals, and the corresponding budget needs to be planned in the grant proposal. Publications with CERN-affiliated authors can of course benefit from the different mechanisms organized by CERN SIS, to implement the CERN Open Access policy, they cover more than 4,000 journals.
A bit lost with all the options? Don’t hesitate to contact us, we are here to support you with any question you might have.