Open access: making research results freely accessible

There are three ways for you to publish your research results so that they are freely accessible at the time of publication. All three methods fulfil the SNSF's open access requirement.

Gold road: You publish your results directly in an OA research journal, as an OA book chapter or as an OA book. The articles, book chapters or books are available immediately in a digital version that is unrestricted and free of charge (gold open access).

As the author, you pay the publisher a publication fee (article processing charge, APC). The SNSF covers the fee for publishing via the gold road.

As of February 2024, the SNSF is no longer funding OA articles published in special issues.

The SNSF is no longer funding open access articles in special issues

Diamond open access

With this option, you also make your research results available immediately, without restrictions and free of charge in a digital version. Unlike the gold road, you do not incur costs. Publication is made possible by third-party funding.

Hybrid model

Your article is published in a journal with a paywall. To make it freely accessible, you have to pay a publication fee. This results in access to your research findings being paid for twice (double dipping). The SNSF consequently does not fund open access publications in hybrid journals. However, you still fulfil the SNSF's open access requirement if you choose the hybrid model.

Numerous Swiss higher education institutions have signed Read & Publish agreements with publishers. Researchers can publish their articles in these publishers' hybrid journals without having to pay a publication fee themselves.

Please note: Some publishers refer to their hybrid offerings as "gold open access", which can be misleading.

In the Journal Checker Tool, you can check which OA model a journal offers. You can also find out whether the SNSF will cover the costs of publishing an article and how you can ensure free access to your article via the green road.

The green road allows you to publish your results in a journal with a paywall, a fee-based book or as a chapter in a fee-based edited volume. In addition, you deposit a version of the publication with identical content in a public repository. There are no costs for you for this secondary publication.

When do you fulfil the SNSF's open access requirement via the green road?

• You deposit your article, book chapter or book in a public repository at the same time as it is published. An embargo period is not permitted. If the article is based on a research project that you submitted to the SNSF before 1 January 2023, an embargo period of a maximum of six months is still permitted. For books and book chapters, the SNSF accepts embargo periods of a maximum of twelve months.
• You have made at least your final manuscript (author's accepted manuscript) freely accessible. This means that the changes following the peer review have been integrated. However, the manuscript does not have to have the publisher's layout. An important condition: The freely accessible version of your article must be published under a CC BY licence.
• If the publication has been deposited in an institutional or disciplinary repository: All interested parties must have unrestricted access to the publication without registration. The publication must be available long-term and free of charge. Preprints only fulfil the OA obligation if they have at least the same content as the final manuscript.
• You can use generalist repositories, for example arxiv.org, PubMed, Europe PMC or zenodo, as long as at least the final version of the manuscript is available. 
• Uploading to private or institutional websites is not sufficient. The long-term availability of the content is not guaranteed, and the texts are not as visible as they should be.
• Uploading publications to academic social networks, for example Researchgate or Academia.edu, is also not sufficient. These platforms require registration. Access is therefore not free, and visibility is restricted.

Open access is not just about allowing interested parties to read a research publication free of charge and without restrictions. They must also be able to redistribute the publication and use it in as many ways as possible. For digital content, the so-called Creative Commons (CC) licences are now standard.

All articles resulting from SNSF-funded research must be published under a CC BY licence. This allows third parties to use the articles without restrictions – from dissemination to automated analysis. Needless to say, authors must be cited whenever their articles are used, and it must be made clear whether the content has been changed.

A CC BY-ND licence, which prohibits third parties from making changes to the content, is only permitted upon justified request and after approval by the SNSF.

For books and book chapters resulting from SNSF-funded research, we do not currently stipulate a specific licence.

Further information can be found here:

For research articles, the SNSF has adopted the Rights Retention Strategy of cOAlition S, an international group of research funders. As an author, you retain the right to make your final manuscript freely available under a CC BY licence immediately upon submission. You should state that you are complying with the SNSF's OA requirement, using the standard statement.

How to proceed

• Insert the following standard statement when submitting manuscripts, e.g. in the acknowledgements: "This research was funded in whole or in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) [grant number]. For the purpose of open access, a CC BY public copyright licence is applied to any author accepted manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission."
• As soon as your final manuscript is available, upload it to a public repository and make it freely accessible immediately with no embargo period.

You can find more information about the Rights Retention Strategy on the cOAlition S website:

If you would like to submit a funding application for a publication, you will find all the necessary information here:

The Journal Checker Tool can be used to find out which journals fulfil the SNSF's OA requirement:

The conditions for open access funding by the SNSF are summarised in these regulations:

Relevant information on rights and licences can be found here: