Open access publications – beneficial for research, business and society
The SNSF requires researchers to publish the results of funded projects in a freely accessible format. This means that new knowledge is immediately visible and can be utilised quickly. The publication costs are covered by the SNSF.
Research results funded with public money are a public asset. All interested parties should be able to use these results free of charge and without restriction. Open access (OA) to digital scientific publications is designed precisely to meet this need.
How can researchers fulfil the SNSF's open access requirement? One option is to publish their results in OA journals or OA books that are freely accessible immediately upon publication. This is the gold road (gold open access).
Another possibility is to publish their results in a journal with a paywall and upload them to a public repository at the same time. This is the green road. For books, an embargo period of 12 months applies.
The SNSF covers the costs of the publishers' services. We fund the OA publication of articles, book chapters and books. The condition: they must be accessible via the gold road.
The SNSF's open access policy is aligned with Switzerland's National Open Access Strategy. The aim is that the results of publicly funded research are made available to all interested parties free of charge. Open access has now become the standard – in Switzerland and worldwide.
Multiple benefits
Researchers themselves have the most to gain from open access: their results are accessible worldwide, which significantly promotes knowledge transfer and visibility. Another positive effect is that researchers have unrestricted access to their colleagues' publications, thereby advancing science. Industry and society can also benefit from new knowledge rapidly and comprehensively.
In addition, open access contributes to the democratisation of research. Worldwide access to results is no longer dependent on available financial resources. This promotes equality and makes research conditions fairer.