"By 'open access’ to [research] literature we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.” [Budapest Open Access Initiative]

Why publishing in Open Access (OA) is important?

• OA publishing makes your work available for free to anyone
• It increases the visibility of your work and your citation rates
• Most funders now have an OA policy to comply with
• Many researchers cannot afford access to a wide range of journals
• OA helps you to reach potential collaborators and partners

Types of Open Access

• Green OA or self archiving is making a copy of your accepted manuscript (postprint) available in a repository
• Gold OA is publishing your article in an open access journal ; your article will be immediately available on the publisher's website but you will have to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC)
• Hybrid OA is making your article immediately opened after payment of an APC ; this option is offered by traditional commercial publishers
• Diamond or Platinium is publishing without any fee ; it's usually funded by non-profit organizations or by donations 

Open Access at Sciences Po

Sciences Po has published in 2021 a Declaration on Open Science. The aim is to provide open access to the scientific publications of Sciences Po researchers and to facilitate data and code sharing and reuse based on the principles of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”. 

What will you find on this page

• Funder policies
• Publishers' agreements
• Open access library fund
• Open Access checklist
• Making your thesis Open Access

Most research funders mandate that research they fund must be published open access within a specific time. In general, they expect that any peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted for publications to be made openly available immedialtly. If you don't apply open access obligations, funders can reduce or withold  part of the grant! 

You will find below some of key funder open access policies. All of them are membres of the Coalition S, a group of European research funders who are promoting Plan S, a strategy of ensuring open access to scholarly publications.

ANR (from 2022)

• All scientific publications resulting from ANR projects must be available in open access under the Creative Commons Licence (CC-BY) or equivalent via one of the following routes:
  • Publication in a natively open access journal
  • Publication in a subscription journal that is part of a transformative agreement or in a transformative journal
  • Publication in a subscription journal using the Right Retention Strategy (RRS), in accordance with the procedures indicated in the grant agreement
• The full text of the scientific publications (version Author Accepted Manuscript or Version of Record) must be deposited in the national open archive HAL, at the time of publication at the latest, and mention the ANR research project reference (e.g. ANR-22-CE64-0001)
• Embargo is accepted for books and book chapters 
• Articles published  in hybrid journals are not eligible
• Provide an acknowledgement of funding in the following format: "This research was funded, in whole or in part, by l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), project ANR-nn-XXXX-nnnn. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC-BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission."

More information in this guide.

Horizon 2020

•  All peer-reviewed scholarly publications that are a result of research that is financed by this programme must be available open access
• Beneficiaries can choose between green and gold roads
• Costs to publish open access in open journals or hybrid journals can are eligible

More information in the H2020 guidelines

Horizon Europe 

• Peer-reviewed research articles and monographs funded by Horizon Europe must be made available open access immediately and no later than the date of publication
• Either the version of record (VOR) or the author accepted manuscript (AAM) must be deposited in a trusted repository
• No embargo permitted for green open access
• Articles published  in hybrid journals are not eligible
• For monographs and chapters, costs and fees must be budgeted into grant and the whole book must be published open access
• Journal articles and chapters in edited books must be made available with a CC BY licence, while for monographs CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND or CC BY-NC-ND may also be used
• Provide an acknowledgement of funding in the following format: "This project has received funding from the [European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme] under grant number No. [Number].

More information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide (PDF)

If you want to know more about open access policies in Europe, you can check this page.

What about research data?

Many funders also require open access for supporting research data. For more information, see our page about Data Management Plan (DMP) or contact our data librarian. 

The Libray has national agreements that allow Sciences Po researchers to publish open access without paying APC. The corresponding author will need to be Sciences Po affiliated and use his email address. 

See below the list of publishers with who the library has a current transformative agreement:

Cambridge University Press (2023-2025)

• Sciences Po researchers have an unlimited capacity to publish for free across the gold and hybrid journal collection (397 titles)
• Does no apply to book chapters and books
• Retroactivity possible for the current year (date of acceptance of the article)
• CC licence options (CC BY, CC BY NC, CC BY NC SA, CC BY NC ND)
• Practical guide for authors

Elsevier (2019-2023)

• Sciences Po researchers can receive a discount for most journals (except Lancet and Cell Press journals) as part of the library's subscription to the Freedom Complete Collection (more than 1000 titles)
• The discount depends on the date of submission of the article (40.88% for articles submitted in 2023, 35,4% for articles submitted in 2022, 33,3% for articles submitted in 2021, 25% for articles submitted in 2020)
• Retroactivity possible
• CC licence options (CC BY, CC BY NC ND)
• Practical guide for authors

Wiley (2022-2024)

• This agreement allows researchers to publish for free in any Wiley journals and with a 10% discount in Hindawi journals (1900 titles)
• This is a capped agreement allowing a limited quantity of articles published accross all Couperin subscribing institutions (3232 articles in 2022, 3280 articles in 2023, 3330 articles in 2024)
• 15% discount if APC stock is exceeded
• Retroactivity possible for the current year but no reimbursement of expenses
• CC licence options (CC BY, CC BY NC, CC BY NC ND)
• Practical guide for authors

The Library has an institutional fund to support non funded researchers to publish in open access. The total amount provided  is 20,000 euros per year, dedicated in priority to articles (up to 2,500 euros per APC and 5,000 euros per BPC).

What are the criterias?

• At least one of the authors of the publication must be Sciences Po affiliated  and this affiliation must be mentioned in the publication's signature
• The fund is opened for publication in hybrid and full gold journals (but priority will be given to journals indexed in the DOAJ) 
• No funding is provided if the publication is the result of a project with a dedicated publication component 
• If this funding does not cover all the costs, the remainder can be found by other means 

• Articles and books should be published under a CC licence (recommended licences: CC-BY for articles or CC-BY-NC ND for books

• The publication must be deposited as soon as possible in SPIRE, Sciences Po institutional repository (postprint or editor version according to the policy of the journal)

• Only one grant per year and per researcher will be accepted

How to apply?

Applications are submitted via an online form as soon as the manuscript has been accepted by the publisher and must be accompanied by proof of the amount requested (quote or invoice from the publisher). An ORCID identifier will be requested when submitting the application via the form.

Once the application has been submitted, it will be examined in consultation with the director of the centre to which it is attached. The applicant will then be contacted by email and a personal meeting may be proposed to discuss alternative solutions for open access publication.

Delphine LERECULEUR

delphine.lereculeur@sciencespo.fr
+33 (0)1-45-49-53-14
   

Before submitting your paper to a publisher or journal, check the following informations:

• What is the business model? Will you have to pay APC or BPC?
• Does it comply with funders' policies (in case your publication is part of a grant)? The Journal Checker Tool can help you to know which options are supported  by your funder
• What is the policy regarding self-archiving? Sherpa Romeo is a service to show the open access policies of academic journals
• Is it referenced by the DOAJ or DOAB?

At submission, include the Rights Retention Strategy statement in the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript and any cover letter/note accompanying the submission. 

Make sure you keep a copy of the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM).

Once you paper is accepted, deposit your publication in SPIRE or any repository (Zenodo)!

Track and manage your public access mandates with Google Scholar!

Making your thesis open access increases the exposure of your work to a wider audience and raise your profile as a researcher. It guarantees long-term preservation and access to it for several decades. This option is available when you deposit your thesis.

At Sciences Po, open access thesis are available on SPIRE. 

If you are thinking about publishing your thesis with a publisher, maybe you hesitate about making you thesis open access. Before making the decision, read this article and watch the video below!

What are the options for publishing an open access book? How much does it cost? You will find in this section some examples:

• Cambridge University Press
• Oxford University Press
• Palgrave
• Springer
• Taylor & Francis