Open Access to Publications 
From FP7 Pilot to Horizon 2020 Mandate
Overview
1. Summary of requirements
2. Practical implementation
3. Discussion
How was Open Access implemented in FP7?
• General framework: EC and ERC Guidelines
• Special Clause 39 in Grant Agreements 
• Best effort to achieve open access to publications
• Choice between the two routes: GREEN and GOLD OA
• Deposit in repository is obligatory (through author or publisher)
• Maximum embargo of 6 months (science, technology, medicine) 
and 12 months (humanities and social sciences)
• Support provided by OpenAIRE, IPR Helpdesk, others
• Support activities developed during the running of FP7 
Monitoring OA policies
91%
9%
SC39 in FP7
FP7
SC39
35%
61%
3% 1%
SC39 OA evaluation
OA
closed
FP7 OA pilot evaluation 
What changes in Horizon2020?
• Update of Guidelines 
• New clauses in Grant Agreements 
• OA to publications is mandatory for all projects
• OA to data piloted for 7 selected areas
• Member States are requested to develop and align
national OA policies and infrastructures
Grant Agreement: ? 29.2 Open access to 
scientific publications
Each beneficiary must ensure open access (free of charge, online access for 
any user) to all peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to its results.
In particular, it must:
(a) as soon as possible and at the latest on publication, deposit a machine-readable
electronic copy of the published version or final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted
for publication in a repository for scientific publications;
Moreover, the beneficiary must aim to deposit at the same time the research data
needed to validate the results presented in the deposited scientific publications.
(b) ensure open access to the deposited publication — via the repository — at the latest:
(i) on publication, if an electronic version is available for free via the publisher, or
(ii) within six months of publication (twelve months for publications in the social
sciences and humanities) in any other case.
(c) ensure open access — via the repository — to the bibliographic metadata that identify
the deposited publication.
The bibliographic metadata must be in a standard format and must include all of the
following:
- the terms ["European Union (EU)" and "Horizon 2020"]["Euratom" and Euratom research and 
training programme 2014-2018"];
- the name of the action, acronym and grant number;
- the publication date, and length of embargo period if applicable, and
- a persistent identifier.
What does this mean?
• Authors are free to choose between the two main and
non-exclusive routes toward Open Access
• Self-archiving (‚green‘ open access): the published article or the
final peer reviewed manuscript is uploaded in an online repository
– access is often delayed (‚embargo period‘)
• Open access publishing (‚gold‘ open access): the article is
immediately in open access mode, through the publisher. The 
associated costs are covered by the author/institution/funder.
• The article must always be deposited in a repository, 
even if the gold route has been choosen.
What to deposit
• The final peer-reviewed manuscript, accepted for
publication, including all modifications from the peer-
review process
OR
• A machine-readable copy of the published version
(usually a PDF document)
In principle this applies to all kinds of publications, but 
emphasis is on peer-reviewed journal articles. 
Where to deposit
• Institutional repository
OR
• Disciplinary repository (arXiv, Europe PubMed Central, etc.)
OR
• Zenodo (www.zenodo.org) if none of the above is available – a EC-
cofunded, multidisciplinary repository, for publications & data
Remarks:
• ERC: Strong recommendation to use disciplinary repositories
(agreements with arXiv and Europe PMC).
• Finding a repository via registries: ROAR http://roar.eprints.org/, 
OpenDOAR http://www.opendoar.org/ or via OpenAIRE (see demo)
• A list of publications on the project website is not sufficient. 
• How to bring all publications together? OpenAIRE-compatibility to
enable the harvesting of metadata (more details later)
When to deposit
• Each beneficiary must deposit as soon as
possible and at the latest on publication.
• Open access must be ensured immediately or after an 
embargo period:
• GREEN – 6-12 months depending on the research area and the
choice of journal
• GOLD – immediately
Some journals demand longer embargo periods of 6-36 
months (compare SHERPA/RoMEO database). 
OPEN 
ACCESS
What are projects expected to do? 
• Projects have to start planning early on
• During proposal writing phase
• Outline of dissemination and exploitation strategy, including OA >> impact
section of the proposal (how will results be shared, data be managed and
shared?)
• Include resources for publication costs (what journals, how many
publications, what does it cost on average?)
• Combine GREEN/GOLD strategies to achieve maximum of OA
• During the project
• Additional provisions in the Consortium Agreement? (where to deposit, who is
responsible)
• Implementation of the dissemination strategy, report at reviews and update
• What issues occur and how can they be solved? (publisher embargos, 
repositories for specific material, etc.)
• After the project end
• Are there publications foreseen after the ending of the project (ie which will 
not be covered by the budget) – for post-FP7 project publications there will 
be a gold OA pilot in H2020
• Who takes care of deposit in repositories after the project end?
Publication costs
Dissemination costs, e.g. for publishing in open access
journals/books, are eligible costs if incurred during the
project period.
What budget to consider in proposals?
APC = Article Processing Charges
Budget for Publications = Average APC x number of publications
Method 1: Average APC based on list of journals used by the
consortium (look up prices at publisher website and/or consult
librarian)
Method 2: Average APC based on general market figures (see next
slide)
What does it cost?
Björk/Solomon estimate the average price of Article 
Processing Charges (APC)
• for established open access journals at ca. 1,020 EUR 
and 
• for hybrid journals (subscription journal with OA option 
for individual articles) at ca. 1,980 EUR
Both types of OA publication costs can be reimbursed in 
H2020 projects.
Currently, there is no price-cap for APCs. (For post-grant 
publications in FP7 a GOLD OA pilot is foreseen where a 
price-cap will likely apply.)
What practices, what issues?
1. Publishing all articles in gold OA may be challenging, 
as this can lead to a substantial amount of the overall
project budget. 
Therefore, a mixed strategy of GREEN/GOLD open 
access is highly recommended.
2. The growing open access market comes with some
challenges
• Lots of new journals/publishers, some of questionable quality
(‚predatory journals‘, http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/) 
• Glossy magazines seize the market opportunities too.
Some caution is needed when publishing, this holds
for all journals. Consult ‚white lists‘ such as DOAJ. 
What practices, what issues?
3. Some publishers are worried about GREEN OA and demand
long embargo periods and/or agreements with research
funders. 
Ca. 65% of publishers allow posting in repositories (some
with embargos). Agreements with publishers do not seem
advisable as this typically perpetuates the status quo 
regarding restrictions to deposit in repositories (or adds a 
price). 
4. Copyright remains an issue: authors still sign away too many
rights, i.e. the deposited copy can typically only be used in 
a limited way (download, printing, etc.) but is not 
available under an open content license (Creative Commons
or similar). 
Authors need support by the funder, institutional and
national policy to secure such rights. 
Dissemination strategy & OA
• Strategy: goals, target audiences, messages
• Methods and tools
• Conventional dissemination material: logo, fact sheet, presentation, 
press release, newsletter, website, etc.
• Social media channels and networks
• Peer reviewed publications and participation in conferences
• List of targeted journals and conferences >> with quality tiers, OA/non-OA
• Recommended OA repositories for publications and data
• Additional guidance
• Publication budget (typically from each partner‘s budget) – OA and non-OA
• Acknowledgement statement
• Maximum embargo period for OA
• Recommended licenses for publications and data
>> Consider to complement this by provisions in the Consortium
Agreement
What are your FAQs from projects?
• OA Publishing & APCs
• Do they use OA repositories?
• Embargos for GREEN OA
• What other issues?
• What are your recommendations?
References
• Bo-Christer Björk, David Solomon (2014): Developing an Effective
Market for Open Access Article Processing Charges, 
http://www.fwf.ac.at/de/public_relations/oai/pdf/Dev_Effective_
Market_OA_Article_Processing_Charges.pdf
Example: List of targeted journals
(FuelFromWaste project)
• British Food Journal >> publisher: Emerald – OA: author can voluntarily self-archive without payment or
embargo (but 24 months embargo if there is a mandate or ask for exception) / Gold OA Fee (hybrid) of
£995/article
• International Journal of Production economics >> publisher: Elsevier – OA: Gold OA Fee (hybrid) of
$1800/article – author can voluntary self-archive immediately (embargo period if a mandate applies)
• Journal of Cleaner Production >> publisher: Elsevier – OA: Gold OA Fee (hybrid) of $3300, same policy for
green OA as above
• International Biodeterioration and Biodegradation Waste Management >> publisher: Elsevier – OA: Gold 
OA Fee (hybrid) of $2500
• Informatore agrario-speciale energie rinnovablili – categorized as a journal without peer review
• Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolisis >> publisher: Elsevier – OA: Gold OA Fee (hybrid) of $2600
• Catalysis Today >> publisher: Elsevier – OA: Gold OA Fee (hybrid) of $3300
• Journal of Nanotechnology >> publisher: IOP Science – OA: Gold OA Fee (hybrid) of $2700/€1950 – author
can post postprint with 12 months embargo
• Chemical Engineering Journal >> publisher: Elsevier – Gold OA Fee (hybrid) of $3300
Research results & their exploitation and/or
dissemination
The decision on whether to publish open access comes after the decision on 
whether to seek protection for intellectual property rights. We‘ll concentrate
on cases where the researchers have decided to publish their results. 
IPR Helpdesk, Factsheet Open access to publications and data in Horizon 2020
https://www.iprhelpdesk.eu/sites/default/files/newsdocuments/Open_Access_in_H2020_0.pdf
Examples: A SC39 project
Publications - PDFs, links repositories, some links to
publisher websites, some just a search in GScholar
AMARSI –What is the open access share?
• OpenAIRE records 73 publications – of
these c 58% are OA
• Project website lists 214 publications
• The project has closed in February 2012
Another example: TRUST
• SC39 project, 83% OA via institutional repository
A non-SC39 project: CONFINE
• Curates publication list via OpenAIRE, i.e. the list can be
considered complete
• 86% OA, 5% embargoed, 
9% closed access
• Use of ZENODO, other
repositories, OA journals
How can national policies and legislation help?
• Aligning / Strengthening European and national OA policies
• Providing frameworks for infrastructure and support in institutions
• Setting rules and securing author rights, e.g. for deposition in OA 
repositories
• Examples
• Italy (Oct 2013): publicly funded research (at least 50%), choice between
green and gold road, storage in repository no later than 18 / 24 months for
science, technology and medicine / humanities and social sciences articles
• Germany (Jan 2014): resulting from research that is funded for at least 50% 
by public funds, work published in a periodical collection (at least biannual), 
the author is allowed to republish in OA for non-commercial purposes after a 
period of 12 months (even if exclusive rights have been assigned to a 
publisher)
• Spain (2011): mandates researchers that are mainly funded by the National 
Government to make public a copy of the final version as soon as possible but 
no later than 12 months after publication
• Portugal FCT policy applying to all funded results (including thesis and
dissertations), issued on 5 May 2014
• Lithuania, Poland,…