FAQ

Journal Articles

OA mandatory? Yes.
When? Immediately (no embargo).
Which version? Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or Publisher's Version (Version of Record).
Compliant routes: Gold OA, Hybrid OA (via transformative agreements),¹ Green OA. Use the Journal Checker Tool to check whether a specific journal is compliant with NWO’s open access requirements.
Copyright: Authors have to retain copyright.
Licensing: Creative Commons Attribution, CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives CC BY-ND by exception).
Financing: Costs can be claimed from grant budget during the project period, but only for APCs in Gold OA journals or platforms (no hybrid).
Supports Rights Retention Strategy ? Yes.

¹ The open access institutional agreements are considered transformative and are therefore compliant with NWO’s policy.

Books

OA mandatory? Yes, for peer-reviewed books with an academic readership.
When? Preferably immediately, but an embargo of up to 12 months is accepted.
Copyright: Authors have to retain copyright.
Licensing: CC BY (preferred) or CC BY-NC/ND.
Financing: NWO’s OA Book Fund (€10,000 per project).

Journal Articles

OA mandatory? Yes.
When? Immediately (no embargo).
Which version? Pre-print (least preferred option by NWO), Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or Version of Record (VoR).
Compliant routes: Gold OA, Hybrid OA, Green OA.
Financing: Costs can be claimed from grant budget during the project period, but only for APCs in Gold OA journals or platforms (no hybrid).
Licensing: Creative Commons licence strongly recommended. Any CC licence is allowed.

Books

Journal Articles

OA mandatory? Yes, via a trusted repository (e.g. Pure).
When? Immediately (no embargo).
Which version? Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or Version of Record (VoR).
Compliant routes: All, provided that the publication is OA immediately via a trusted repository under a CC BY licence.
Copyright: Authors have to retain copyright.
Licensing: CC BY.
Financing: Costs can be claimed from grant budget during the project period, but only for APCs in Gold OA journals or platforms (no hybrid).

Books

OA mandatory? Yes, via trusted repository.
When? Immediately (no embargo).
Copyright: Authors have to retain copyright.
Licensing: CC BY or CC BY-NC/ND.
Financing: Via grant budget.

NB: Authors funded by Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and ERC can publish open access for free on the European Commission's publishing platform Open Research Europe (ORE). Publishing in ORE is possible also after the project has ended.

Journal Articles

OA mandatory? Yes, via trusted repository.
When? Max after 6 months (STEM disciplines) or 12 months (Social Sciences and Humanities).
Which version? Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or Version of Record (VoR).
Compliant routes: Gold OA, Hybrid OA, Green OA.
Finance: Costs reimbursed from grant budget in all publication venues (including hybrid journals).
Licensing: Any CC licence.

Books

OA is encouraged but not mandatory for books and types of publications other than journal articles.

NB: Authors funded by Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and ERC can publish open access for free on the European Commission's publishing platform Open Research Europe (ORE). Publishing in ORE is possible also after the project has ended.

The open access policy of your funder is usually specified in the grant agreement. If you are unsure, please get in touch with the open access support team: openaccess rug.nl or openaccess umcg.nl.

You should start familiarizing yourself with your funder open access (and open science) requirements right at the start of the grant application process. In the pre-award phase, open access requirements should be taken into account when budgeting for your project (see ‘Budgeting’ section below). In the post-award phase, the open access requirements of your funder should steer your publication strategy and should be factored in when choosing your publication venues. Thinking about open access compliance only after a manuscript has been submitted, accepted or even published is not advisable, as it might be too late to comply with the open access requirements of your funder.

Yes, most funders will cover open access costs, but conditions apply. Please see the section 'Funder Requirements' above for an overview of the requirements for NWO- and EU-funded grants. Please get in touch with the open access support team if you have any doubts or questions: openaccess rug.nl or openaccess umcg.nl.

In a nutshell:

• Estimate how many articles you will publish and try to identify your target journals.
• Check the Journal Browser to see if a discount on the APC is available.
• If there is no discount or the discount is less than 100%, then the remaining costs should be included in your grant budget.

NB: Some funders do not reimburse the open access costs for hybrid open access journals.

In more detail:

Step 1:
Try to make a realistic estimate of how many articles you will publish during the project period and which are your target journals.  

Step 2:
Check if these journals are included in the open access agreements that the University has reached with different publishers. Use the Journal Browser to see if your target journal is eligible for a discount. In most cases the discount will be 100%, so you can publish open access for free. If the discount is less than 100%, you will need to budget for the remaining amount in the grant budget.

NB: Please be aware that the open access agreements have a limited duration. Although it is likely that the agreements will continue to be in place, this cannot be guaranteed. Also, the coverage and conditions of the agreements might change over time. Because of this, it is recommended that you always reserve some budget for OA publication costs, even if your target journals are currently covered by the agreements.

Step 3:
If a discount on the APC is not available, check the journal's website to see how much the open access fee (APC) is. These costs should be included in your grant budget.

Please note that most funders will only reimburse the costs for publishing in fully gold open access journals (registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals). This means that APCs for hybrid journals that are not part of the agreements cannot be paid using the grant budget. Publishing in such journals is discouraged by funders, but is not forbidden. If you intend to publish in these venues, the open access fee has to be covered using your own funds, e.g. your own research budget or your institute's funds.

NWO and Horizon Europe require immediate open access (no embargo), so the Taverne Amendment is not enough to satisfy their requirements since it involves a 6-month embargo. The Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) allows you to satisfy your funder’s requirements even if an embargo is imposed by the journal. Please consult the question below for more information on the RRS.

Horizon 2020 allows an embargo of 6 to 12 months (depending on the discipline). The Taverne Amendment therefore satisfies these requirements.

Yes, this is possible thanks to the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS). The RRS allows you to publish in any journal (including non-compliant ones, e.g. subscription journals) and make the Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM) open access in a repository immediately under a CC BY licence, even when the publisher's conditions do not allow it or when there's a longer embargo. Funders facilitate this by changing their grant conditions to require that a CC BY licence is applied to all AAMs supported in whole or in part by their funding.

In practice, this means adding a standard statement to your manuscript submission informing the publisher about your funder's requirements and notifying them that a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence will be applied to the AAM of your publication. Please consult the link below for more in-depth information on the RRS and its implementation. Contact the open access support team if you have any questions.    

This depends on your funder’s policy. Please check your grant agreement for details.

To give an example, NWO reserves the right to retain part of the final installment of the grant in case of non-compliance with their open access policy, while Horizon 2020 states that the grant may be reduced in case beneficiaries breach their open access obligations.

Article Processing Charge (APC): a fee paid to the publisher to make an article open access.

Author’s Accepted Manuscript, also known as Final Author’s Version or ‘Post-print’: the version that follows the peer review process and has been accepted for publication. This version does not include the publisher’s formatting, such as page numbers, volume and issue.

Book Processing Charge (BPC): a fee paid to the publisher to publish a book open access.

Creative Commons licences: these licences are a simple, standardized way to give users permission to share and use creative and scholarly work. There are different types of CC licences. The Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY) is the most open type.

Gold open access: a fully open access journal that does not charge subscription fees for reading access. Gold open access journals usually charge a publication fee, also known as an Article Processing Charge (APC).

Green open access: publishing in a closed access journal and then making a version of your publication available in an institutional repository, such as Pure at the University of Groningen.

Hybrid open access: a traditional subscription journal that offers open access publication for individual articles on payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC).

Pre-print: the version of a scholarly publication that precedes peer-review.

Repository: an online database of publications. These repositories can be institutional, such as Pure at the University of Groningen.

Version of Record, also known as Publisher’s version: the final PDF of the published article.

• Funder requirements
• NWO open access regulations
• Horizon Europe open access regulations
• Horizon 2020 open access regulations
• Open Research Europe (EU publishing platform)
• Guide to Creative Commons licenses