The SNSF’ new Open Access regulations
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As of January 1, 2023, new Open Access regulations will apply to all new funding applications submitted to the SNSF. As before, researchers funded by the SNSF can meet the SNSF’s OA requirements in four ways. Journal articles must now be directly available as Open Access without embargo under a CC-BY license; nothing changes for book chapters and books. The SNSF has updated its general implementation regulations accordingly.
The roads to Open Access
Gold or Platinum Open Access
One way to (continue to) meet the SNSF requirements is to publish in an OA journal in which all articles are Open Access. In certain cases (Gold Open Access), the journal charges “article processing charges” (APCs). In other cases, publishing is free (Platinum Open Access). The APCs in an Open Access journal are fully covered by the SNSF. Researchers can submit their manuscript via ChronosHub and the APCs will be charged directly to the SNSF.
Green Open Access
Another possibility is the so-called green road to Open Access: researchers can archive and publish their manuscripts themselves. To do so, they must make at least the manuscript accepted by the publisher publicly available. This manuscript version (“author-accepted manuscript”) is identical in content to the published version on the publisher’s website (“version of record”), but differs in that the manuscript is not available in the publisher’s layout with correct page numbers. For self-archiving, UZH offers its researchers the institutional repository ZORA.
Hybrid journals
Furthermore, researchers can also publish their manuscripts in hybrid journals. Hybrid journals are subscription-based, i.e. research institutions (usually their libraries) pay a license fee to make the content of the journal accessible for reading. In addition, however, these hybrid journals also offer the option of making a single article openly accessible. For this, however, the publisher requires APCs from the authors.
The SNSF does not pay for hybrid open access. However, the University Library and the Zurich Central Library have signed so-called Read & Publish agreements with a number of scientific publishers that offer UZH researchers the opportunity to publish Open Access free of charge in a large number of hybrid journals. The SNSF recognizes such publications as fulfilling the Open Access regulations.
What changes?
The new Open Access requirements of the SNSF target primarily the green road to Open Access, i.e. when researchers self-archive their manuscript: The manuscript must be made publicly available without an embargo period (previously: 6 months) with a CC-BY license (previously: not a requirement). This means that the publications can be reused immediately and without restrictions by others, only the author(s) must be named. With this, the SNSF follows the principles of Plan S.
What does this mean for researchers?
When publishing a manuscript, authors hand over most rights of use to the publisher or give the publisher an exclusive license to publish. This significantly restricts the rights of authors in what they can do with their manuscript. For example, authors can only make their manuscript available on a repository after an embargo period of 12 months or are only allowed to make the submitted version public, but not the version accepted by the publisher. Sherpa/Romeo offers a good overview per journal.
These restrictions prevent authors from fulfilling the Open Access requirements of the SNSF. The SNSF therefore adopts the “Rights Retention Strategy” developed by cOAlition S. This strategy allows researchers at the time of submission to reserve the right to make their accepted manuscript freely available immediately and under a CC-BY license, whilst referring to their obligations to the SNSF.
According to cOAlition S, author(s) may include the following sentence in the footnote of their submitted manuscript:
"This research was funded in whole, or in part, by [Funder name, Grant number xxxxx]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC-BY public copyright license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission."
In addition to the Rights Retention Strategy, authors can also try to negotiate their author rights in the publishing agreement (“Copyright Transfer Agreement” or “Exclusive license to publish”) (e.g., by adjusting the embargo period and license or by restricting the agreement to the published version explicitly).
What does not change?
The current Open Access funding for articles, books and book chapters will continue unchanged. In addition, nothing changes regarding the OA requirements for books and book chapters.
Where can I find help?
cOAlition S offers support for authors who apply the Rights Retention Strategy. The University Library’s website also provides further information on self-archiving.
The event series “Lunch&Learn Open Science” informs on authors’ rights and the new requirements
At three events in 2023, researchers at the University of Zurich can find out more on these topics. Each event will take place over lunch from 12:30 to 13:30 via Zoom.
- On March 8, Tobias Philipp from the SNSF speaks about the new Open Access regulations.
- On April 5, Sally Rumsey and Johan Rooryck from cOAlition S inform about the Rights Retention Strategy.
- On August 24, Suzanna Marazza from CCdigitallaw talks about requirements from research funders and how to reconcile them with the conditions of publishing.
More information, registration, and to download presentations of previous events: https://t.uzh.ch/lunch
Melanie Röthlisberger, Open Science Services
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