THE LERU ROADMAP
TOWARDS OPEN ACCESS
LERU OPEN ACCESS WORKING GROUP
Universiteit van Amsterdam - Universitat de Barcelona -  University of Cambridge - University of Edinburgh - Albert-
Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg - Université de Genève - Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg - Helsingin yliopisto
(University of Helsinki) - Universiteit Leiden - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - Imperial College London - University
College London - Lunds universitet - Università degli Studi di Milano - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München -
University of Oxford - Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris - Université Paris-Sud 11 -  Université de Strasbourg -
Universiteit Utrecht - Universität Zürich
ADVICE PAPER
No.8 - JUNE 2011
LEAGUE OF EUROPEAN RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES
 
Authors
The paper has been written by the LERU working group on open access. Contributing authors to the paper are:
Paul Ayris, Director of UCL Library Services and UCL Copyright Officer, President of LIBER (Association of European Research
Libraries) and Co-chair of the LERU working group on open access 
Lars Björnshauge, Director of Libraries, Lunds universitet, and Co-chair of the LERU working group on open access
Mel Collier, Head Librarian, K.U.Leuven
Eelco Ferwerda, Amsterdam University Press, Digital projects, & Coordinator of OAPEN
Neil Jacobs, Programme Director, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) 
Kaisa Sinikara, University Librarian, University of Helsinki 
Alma Swan, Convenor, Enabling Open Scholarship 
Saskia de Vries, Director, Amsterdam University Press 
Astrid van Wesenbeeck, Director, SPARC-Europe
LERU thanks the wider community of librarians in its member universities and other experts who provided valuable input for the paper
and comments during the drafting process. The LERU Research Policy Committee and Rectors generously contributed their advice.
3Executive Summary
• The LERU Roadmap towards Open Access represents a con-
scious decision by the League of European Research
Universities to investigate new models for scholarly commu-
nication and the dissemination of research outputs emanat-
ing from LERU universities.
• The European Commission has singled out "the dissemina-
tion, transfer and use of research results, including through
open access to publications and data from publicly funded
research", as one of the action points to be pursued in order to
achieve a well-functioning European Research Area (ERA).1
Access to research information must be optimised if the
European research community is to operate effectively, pro-
ducing high-quality research that has a wider social and eco-
nomic impact.2
• We are seeing a growing interest across the world in the
moves made in recent years to stimulate an ‘Open Access’
environment, where scholarly literature is made freely avail-
able on the internet, so that it can be read, downloaded,
copied, distributed, printed, searched, text mined, or used for
any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal or techni-
cal barriers, subject to proper attribution of authorship.3
• The idea of Open Access is not new; the first major interna-
tional statement on Open Access was set out in the
Declaration of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002.4
However, ‘the pathway’ to Open Access is not a smooth one.
Many parties are involved and there are many competing
interests. There are costs and there are advocates, agnostics
and critics. There are gains and impacts which need to be
carefully assessed.
• This Roadmap traverses some of this landscape and aims to
assist LERU members who wish to put in place structures,
policies and practices to facilitate Open Access. Whilst the
Roadmap is primarily intended for LERU members, other
European universities may find it useful. 
• The two basic mechanisms through which researchers can
make their work freely available are often termed as the ‘gold
route’ and the ‘green route.’ The adoption of either or both
routes could lead to a transformation in the means of dis-
seminating research outputs by LERU and other universities
across the globe.
• LERU and/or other universities can consider having Open
Access repositories into which, copyright permissions allow-
ing, copies of their members’ research outputs could be deposit-
ed. Those who already have such repositories are continuing to
develop them. Many universities have found the Green route a
helpful one to follow as a means of improving the dissemina-
tion of research outputs. In Webometrics listings of the impact
of institutional repositories, LERU universities are significant
contributors. The July 2010 listing shows that five of the top
ten European universities listed are members of LERU.5
Further guidance, including some costing information, on
implementing the Green route is given in section III.
• Several universities have supported the Gold route for Open
Access, whereby authors in these institutions either publish
in Open Access journals or pay publication charges ( funded
by the research funder or from an institutional Open Access
fund) to make their article available in Open Access on pub-
lication. Some research funders, such as the Wellcome Trust
in the UK, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the
Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO),
will fund such publication payments. The Gold route is a
bold route, which may also change the pattern of publica-
tion. Further information, including some financial infor-
mation, is given in section IV.
• All of the changes described in this Roadmap require leader-
ship. Universities could usefully nominate a senior person
who can lead on Open Access issues for the whole university.
These people could, in turn, work together collaboratively to
take forward the Open Access agenda in Europe, making
links as appropriate to other bodies in Europe who support
Open Access developments. At an institutional level, the sen-
ior Open Access champion could usefully draw together a
pan-university committee, with representatives from disci-
plines/support services to take the agenda forward. 
THE LERU ROADMAP TOWARDS OPEN ACCESS
1 See Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative Innovation Union. European Commission. COM (2010) 546, 6 October 2010.
2 See Overcoming barriers: Access to research information content. Research Information Network, London, 2009. 
Available at http://www.rin.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/Sarah/Overcoming-barriers-report-Dec09_0.pdf and Friend, F.J. (2007)  UK Access to UK
Research, in Serials, vol. 20 (3), pp. 231-34. Available at http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/4842/.
3 See Getting your feet wet: An introduction to Open Access, http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/using-and-accessing-information-resources/introduction-open-access. 
4 See http://www.soros.org/openaccess/view.cfm.
5 See http://www.webometrics.info/top100_continent.asp?cont=europe.
4THE LERU ROADMAP TOWARDS OPEN ACCESS
I. Open Access in a wider con-
text: Open Scholarship and
Open Knowledge
1. Open Access is not a new phenomenon and can be
seen, for example, in Stevan Harnad’s work in 1990.6
As with any Roadmap, understanding the directions
requires a knowledge of the surrounding landscape;
Open Knowledge and Open Scholarship.
2. Open Knowledge is ‘any kind of information – son-
nets to statistics, genes to geodata – that can be freely
used, re-used, and redistributed’ (Open Knowledge
Foundation definition).7 Open Scholarship refers to
research that generates Open Knowledge.  While the
LERU Roadmap focuses on more traditional research
outputs, it is important to note that ‘Open
Knowledge’ is much broader than this, and would
encompass primary data, associated software, and
educational resources.  The reason for focusing on
Open Access to more traditional research outputs is
that they have common issues around making them
freely available that make it reasonable to consider
them together, and separately from other types of
knowledge.  
3. In brief these issues are around: 
• Costs – Open Knowledge costs nothing to the
user, but needs sustainable business models.
• Time – Open Knowledge is available immediately
and permanently.  Open Access research outputs
may be subject to publisher embargos, which
have to be balanced with the public interest as
expressed, for example, by research funders’ con-
ditions of grant.
• Rights and rewards – Open Knowledge is avail-
able for people to use in any lawful way, including
for commercial purposes.  For Open Access
research outputs, this maximises the impact of
the research, and acceptable ways need to be
found to assess and reward that impact.
• Technology – Open Knowledge is made available
in ways that enable computer-based tools to
exploit it, via aggregation, data-mining, annota-
tion and so on, as well as supporting tools to
assist disabled people, such as screen readers.  
4. Open Access, therefore, is one element in a broader
landscape of Open Scholarship and Knowledge,
which could rapidly change the way research is under-
taken and communicated globally.  Universities lead-
ing these changes will be well-placed to attract the
best researchers and students, and show how they
contribute to the growing European knowledge econ-
omy and society.
II.Benefits accruing from Open
Access for researchers,
Universities and Society 
5. Open Access brings benefits for a variety of con-
stituencies. Open Access has its philosophical roots
in the traditional values and goals of the academy –
collegiality, research and knowledge creation as a
shared endeavour, a collaborative approach to
enquiry, the furtherance of human understanding
and the diffusion of knowledge to the benefit of
Society at large. Open Access has appeared and the
advent of the Internet enables the realisation of
these things in a way not possible in the print-on-
paper age.  
Researchers 
6. The authors of academic works enjoy increased vis-
ibility, usage and impact for their research outputs
when they are made in Open Access.8 Because
Google and other web search engines index Open
Access repositories, authors’ work is easily found
and, being Open Access, can be retrieved for use by
everyone.
7. Open Access also allows different types of research
to be undertaken – using the literature as data,
alongside other data.
8. This visibility and usage are new: before Open
Access, the only way to see academic work was by
paying for subscriptions to journals or by paying a
fee to view an article on the publisher’s website.
This restricted access to those who could afford to
6 See Harnad, S. (1990) Scholarly Skywriting and the Prepublication Continuum of Scientific Inquiry; available at http://cogprints.org/1581/.
7 See http://okfn.org/. 
8 See aggregations of studies on the Open Access impact advantage:  Swan, A. (2010) The Open Access citation advantage: Studies and results to date, ECS
EPrints, 17 Feb 2010; Wagner, A. B. (2010) Open Access Citation Advantage: An Annotated Bibliography, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship,
No. 60, Winter 2010.
pay for access in these ways.
9. It is sobering to note that the World Health
Organisation found in a survey conducted at the start
of the millennium that more than half of research-
based institutions in lower-income countries had no
current subscriptions to international research jour-
nals, nor had they had any for the previous five years.9
Unsurprisingly, researchers in developing countries
rank access to the research literature as one of their
most pressing problems.10 By making work available
in Open Access, researchers are helping to create a
global knowledge commons so that all may benefit,
not just the relatively wealthy.
10. There have been some important efforts made to
address issues affecting researchers and policy mak-
ers in the developing world. 
• For example, the HINARI Programme, set up by
the World Health Organisation (WHO) together
with major publishers, enables the poorest devel-
oping countries to gain access to one of the
world’s largest collections of biomedical and
health literature.11 Institutions in countries with
GNI per capita below $1,600 are eligible for free
access. Institutions in countries with GNI per capi-
ta between $1,601-$4,700 pay a fee of $1,000 per
year/institution.
• Under the Oxford Journals Developing Countries Offer,
institutions within qualifying countries based on
country incomes as established by the World Bank
Report (2006) can apply for free or greatly reduced
online access to the full Developing Countries col-
lection, the Humanities and Social Science subset,
or the Science, Technical and Medical subset.
Universities 
11. Universities benefit from the aggregated impact of
their researchers. The new audiences that Open
Access brings to research can use this access to
build on research findings and to make further dis-
coveries. A university’s mission is to create knowl-
edge and to disseminate it; Open Access may help
universities to fulfil this mission. Having university
research open and showcased to the world poten-
tially boosts a university’s profile and enables the
uptake and use of the fruits of research effort fund-
ed for the benefit of Society.
Society
12. The free diffusion of knowledge into Society in gen-
eral from Europe’s universities aids the building of
a knowledge economy and the raising of scientific
and cultural literacy.
13. There are potential economic benefits, too, and
these accrue to the research sector and to Society as
a whole. Economic modelling by the Australian
economist, Professor John Houghton of Victoria
University, Melbourne, has shown that in all the
countries modelled so far (Australia, UK,
Netherlands, Denmark and the US) Open Access
works out as the most cost-effective option for dis-
seminating research. It increases accessibility and
the efficiency with which researchers can do their
work, and streamlines library operations.12 With
worldwide Open Access, researchers would spend
less time looking for and accessing research infor-
mation for their reading, writing and peer reviewing
activities; far less time would be spent gaining per-
5
ADVICE PAPER - NO. 8, JUNE 2011
“There is no doubt in my mind that ePrints [the Open Access repository] will have improved things ... many
more access my papers who wouldn’t have thought of contacting me personally in the ‘old’ days. While this
may … increase … citations, the most important thing … is that at least these people can find out more about
what others have done…”
Professor Martin Skitmore, Urban Design, Faculty of Built Environment & Engineering, Queensland University of Technology,
Brisbane
9 Note that many developing countries do not qualify for schemes that supply journal access at cheap rates. See eligibility rules for Research4Life,
for instance: http://www.research4life.org/institutions.html. 
10 Aronson, B (2004) Improving Online Access to Medical Information for Low-income Countries, in New England Journal of Medicine, 350, pp. 966–968 at
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/350/10/966.
11 See http://www.who.int/hinari/en/. 
12 For example, the average handling times (minutes per journal per year) calculated by university libraries involved in a recent study were: Print jour-
nals 143 minutes, electronic journals 56 minutes, Open Access journals 10 minutes. For more data see Swan, A. (2010) Modelling scholarly communi-
cation options: costs and benefits for universities. Technical Report, Scholarly Communications Group, JISC, at http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18584/. 
6THE LERU ROADMAP TOWARDS OPEN ACCESS
missions from publishers to re-use researchers’ own
and others’ work; and avoiding blind alleys and dupli-
cation of research would be easier. And libraries
would spend far less on buying content and handling
journal administration. There are costs associated
with Open Access dissemination models, of course,
but these are far outweighed by the economic benefits
across the system from free and easy access to all
research outputs. Houghton and his team estimate that
savings would be many times the costs in every case
modelled and could amount to substantial sums: for
example, the Netherlands could enjoy economic bene-
fits every year to the value of around €133 million.13
Benefits and costs fall unevenly however. 
14. It is important to note that the Houghton report
remains controversial and debated: publishers, a
major stakeholder, were not consulted in the
research and some of the input data in the models is
disputed. In addition, many of the savings would
only be achievable if all information went Open
Access, not just that from LERU members.
Otherwise universities would end up paying sub-
scriptions and all of the associated costs, as well as
Open Access costs for their research. For research-
intensive universities, such as the LERU members, a
direct comparison of Gold Open Access charges
compared to current subscription costs shows that
they would pay more under the Gold Open Access
route; under a Green Open Access model, universi-
ties incur new costs with no immediate savings on
subscriptions. However, a new study by CEPA,
Heading for the Open Road,14 in which the Publishing
Research Consortium was a partner, looks again at
financial modelling and concludes that a prudent
approach for policy makers wishing to promote
access would be to encourage the take-up of Green
and Gold Open Access.
15. Economic benefits can accrue across Society, outside
the research sector. Businesses, such as biotechnol-
ogy companies, that innovate using basic research as
their raw material – creating wealth in Society in the
process – benefit from Open Access to the informa-
tion they need. The professional sector, including
examples such as family doctor practices, legal busi-
nesses, and the secondary and higher education
communities, can access and use hitherto unavail-
able research material. The practitioner community
– such as civil engineering firms, software engi-
neers, consultancies and the financial sector – can
transfer knowledge from basic research into their
commercial practices. 
16. Through Open Access, Europe’s populations can be
better informed, not only by their own efforts at
seeking out specific research information on topics
of interest, but through better-informed media
bringing to their attention new developments and
findings from basic research. Knowledge societies
can be built around the world much more strongly
and effectively if knowledge is easily accessed and
spread. Open Access is a key to this transformation.
III. LERU and the Green route 
for Open Access 
Overview  
17. The Green route has been defined as the route where
copies of peer-reviewed research outputs are made
freely available on the web, using an Open Access
repository, alongside any formal published versions. 
18. In this model research is deposited into the institu-
tional repository, subject to copyright/license per-
missions. Many journal publishers do allow deposi-
tion after embargo periods (e.g. 12 months) and
these embargo periods are maintained to ensure the
continued value of subscriptions and therefore
ensure sustainable business models for commercial-
ly-published journals. Many book publishers do not
allow full deposition (of the full work) into institu-
tional repositories. It should be noted, however, that
advocates of Open Access would wish to keep
embargo periods as short as possible. 
19. For journal materials, this does lead to more than
one version of the article being available (the post-
print version as well as the version of record). Some
feel that this benefits research, others worry that it is
confusing to readers and can be dangerous in, for
example, medical areas. Under the Green route,
however, it is possible to disseminate the publication
of errata.
13 For John Houghton’s comparison of Denmark, The Netherlands and the UK in June 2009, 
see http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=316.
14 See http://www.publishingresearch.net/documents/RINHeadingforopenroadDynamicsoftransition.pdf.
Green Route - Stage 1: Getting Started 
20. An institution that has established such an Open
Access repository has the technical tools that enable
it to manage and share its research outputs on the
web. In doing so, it joins a broad range of European
institutions with such tools. Such repositories
should use standard protocols.
21. There is a significant body of literature which can
inform institutions in their decision making
processes when establishing a repository.15
22. The costs of establishing an Open Access repository
vary from institution to institution. The costs to
establish the Southampton Institutional Repository
in the UK amounted to approximately €13,000 for
technical costs, a 0.5 FTE senior post as Institutional
Repository manager, a 0.5 FTE Research Fellow for
advocacy and 0.7 FTE support staff.16 From a range
of UK universities consulted, the annual costs of
holding research papers in a repository range from
€30,000 to €242,000.17 Further clarity on the costs of
Open Access will be obtained by LERU universities
exchanging information and from studies that will
result from such collaboration.
23. In parallel with the establishment of an institutional
repository or repositories, universities should consid-
er creating a communications and advocacy strategy,
which informs the academy of both the drivers for
establishing a repository system and also how univer-
sity researchers can submit their outputs to the new
dissemination system. Regular monitoring will iden-
tify what proportion of the university’s research out-
put is available via the institutional repository.
24. An important part of the university’s strategy for
advocacy will be to identify the benefits which Open
Access may bring both to the researcher and the
institution. These benefits are listed in section II.
25. Universities should be clear on the type of materials
which can be deposited. By way of example, the
University of Helsinki requires researchers to deposit
copies of their research articles published in academ-
ic journals in HELDA, the open digital repository
maintained by the University of Helsinki. It is also
possible to store other types of publications in the
repository, such as popular articles, other published
documents, the University’s publications as well as
monographs and teaching material, if permitted by
publishing contracts. Where such materials have been
peer reviewed in commercial publications, this should
be noted in the metadata accompanying the full text.
26. There may be differing views within the academic
community, and policies set that are appropriate for
each disciplinary area. There are those who suggest
that there must be an academic quality control
process for repositories, and that only those items at
or above the threshold quality should be made pub-
lic. This is why some repositories, for example, will
only accept peer reviewed outputs. Others contend
that rather than restrict the type of item, what is
important is that their exact status be described (so,
for example, the reader can distinguish between a
draft working paper and a copy of an item published
by a peer reviewed journal). 
27. Harvard University provides an interesting case
study in Open Access policy making. With support
from the Office for Scholarly Communication, Open
Access policies are now in place in more than half of
the Harvard Schools (as at April 2011). These policies
apply only to ‘scholarly articles’ in the form of a final
manuscript sent to the publisher after the completion of
the peer review process. 
28. Using terms from the Budapest Open Access
Initiative, Harvard Faculty’s scholarly articles are
articles that describe the fruits of their research and
that they give to the world for the sake of inquiry and
knowledge without expectation of payment. Such
articles are typically presented in peer reviewed
scholarly journals and conference proceedings.
29. Not included under this notion of scholarly article are:
books, popular articles, commissioned articles, fic-
tion and poetry, encyclopedia entries, ephemeral writ-
ings, lecture notes, lecture videos, or other copyright-
ed works. This is not to denigrate such writings.
Rather, they are generated as part of separate publish-
ing or distribution mechanisms that function in dif-
ferent ways, the integral qualities of which, if any, the
present policies do not and are not meant to address.18
7
ADVICE PAPER - NO. 8, JUNE 2011
15 See http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/ and also an important RAND Europe evaluation of the London SHERPA-LEAP consortium at
http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/13760.
16 See  http://www.driver-repository.eu/PublicDocs/D7.2_1.1.pdf, p. 171.
17 Swan, A. (2010) Modelling scholarly communication options: costs and benefits for universities. A report for the JISC. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18584/.
18 See http://osc.hul.harvard.edu/policies#articles.
8THE LERU ROADMAP TOWARDS OPEN ACCESS
30. At an early stage, the institution can embed their
Open Access efforts into pan-university strategies.
This is important because work on Open Access
needs to be fully aligned with an institution’s mis-
sion. Institutional strategies in at least the following
areas can be aligned with the new developments:
• Research/Teaching and Learning
• Copyright/Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
• Publications
31. LERU recognizes that LERU and/or other universities
can work together in collaboration to avoid duplicat-
ing effort. Such collaborative activity can also embrace
working with research funders, who have their own
strategies and requirements for the dissemination of
funded research outputs. National/regional examples
of guidance will help to shape work at an institutional
level.
Green Route - 
Stage 2: Embedding the Green route 
32. In many ways, a real sign of success at an institution-
al level is to agree an institutional mandate where,
copyright permissions allowing, all research outputs
from the institution are deposited in Open Access in
the institutional repository. Such a step is a bold one
and will need explicit support from the academy.
Commonly, such a policy is agreed by the institu-
tion’s academic Senate, as was the case in UCL
(University College London) which is described in
more detail in section V. 
33. If the mandate requires self-archiving by the
authors, this can be facilitated by friendly and simple
systems, preferably integrated with current research
information systems. Utrecht University, for exam-
ple, has created a simple "Upload Full text button" in
their (mandatory) research registration system.  
34. LERU and/or other universities can consider adopt-
ing Open Access mandates for their research out-
puts. Where materials are lodged in subject-based
Open Access repositories, or published in Open
Access journals, or in journals that make materials
available after a certain period of time, cross-linking
can make all such materials visible in one search.
Partnerships with publishers and research funders
will help to avoid unnecessary duplication of activity.
35. LERU and/or other universities are able to take a
proactive stance on copyright issues, safe in the
knowledge that the vast majority of commercial jour-
nals allow some form of archiving of an author’s own
research outputs. Where assignment of copyright is
required by a publisher as a condition of publication,
researchers should instead consider the use of a
Licence to Publish, where copyright is retained by the
author and a licence to publish granted to the publish-
er by the author.19 It is the author’s responsibility to
check the policies of the journals they are publishing
with, but mechanisms to check they are abiding by the
license they have published should be in place.
Green Route - 
Stage 3: Furthering the process
36. It is important that universities actively continue cur-
rent investigations into the feasibility of storing open
primary data in repositories, linking the open data to
the secondary research publication. This is potential-
ly a new area for repositories and will bring to light
different issues and concerns. Primary data, across all
subject areas, forms the building blocks from which
secondary research articles and monographs are cre-
ated. Such primary data, once available in Open
Access, can be interrogated by researchers, or re-used
to avoid duplication of research effort.  Universities
that have well-developed repository infrastructures
are well placed to meet the new challenges which such
a development will bring, a position which is in line
with developments in the EU.20
37. The relationship of the BASE search interface21 for
Open Access with the Europeana portal22 and with
other information providers needs to be clear, to
avoid duplication of effort and to ensure that the
European user has access to the best possible tools
for search and retrieval.
38. There is currently a gap in the provision of a secure
digital curation infrastructure across Europe for the
contents of Open Access repositories and Open
Access journals. European universities, research
funders and other stakeholders can usefully work
together to identify and put in place the infrastruc-
ture that is needed.
19 See the Copyright Tool Box, produced by the JISC and SURF, and listed below in section V  for further information.
20 See http://bulletin.sciencebusiness.net/ebulletins/showissue.php3?page=/548/6589/20007. 
21 Available at http://base.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/en/about_sources_date_dn.php?menu=2. 
22 Available at http://www.europeana.eu/portal/. 
IV. LERU and the Gold route for
Open Access 
Overview 
39. The Gold route has been defined as journal publish-
ing operating with a business model not based on
subscription, but rather on either publication
charges (where the author or an organization on
behalf of the author funds the publishing costs) or
on subsidy. Gold Open Access journals do not
charge readers and grant extensive usage rights in
accordance with the authoritative definition of the
Budapest Open Access Initiative.23
40. Substantial changes are taking place in the scholarly
communications process. These changes may well
affect all universities across the world and LERU uni-
versities are no exception.
41. In the production of scholarly monographs and
research articles, peer and editorial review and
indeed improved peer review are of paramount
importance and therefore business models that sup-
port their sustainability need to be in place.
42. As it is proposed by LERU that Open Knowledge is
beneficial to research efficiency, institutions can
work for change in the existing publishing system in
the direction of sustainable business models for
Open Access publishing.
43. There are two types of journal under which authors
can adopt Gold Open Access: full Open Access jour-
nals and hybrid (or optional) journals. Whilst Gold
Open Access has been shown to increase usage, there
is no decisive evidence to date that it increases cita-
tions. Many full Open Access journals are young jour-
nals and so may not have the same profile or impact
factor of their more traditional/established competi-
tors, but this not reflect their future influence.
44. Some publishers ‘double dip’ – i.e. charge full sub-
scription prices as well as charging authors publica-
tion fees in hybrid journals. LERU members have the
choice to push back on such pricing or to require
their researchers not to pay Open Access fees in such
publishers’ journals.
Gold Route - Stage 1: Getting started   
45. LERU and/or other universities may advocate the
benefits for their researchers and for European
research in publishing in Open Access journals.24
LERU and/or other universities may also consider
allocating funds to pay for publication charges in
those Open Access journals which charge for sub-
missions and publication, where funding is not pro-
vided by the research funder.25
46. In order to maximize the investments in paying for
publication charges, there is a need to investigate the
feasibility of LERU and/or other universities as a
group entering into agreement with Gold Open
Access publishers for membership and/or bigger
discounts on publication charges.26 Guidance on
this can be made available to European university
groupings and consortia as a whole. 
47. As with the Green route, universities should embed
their approach to Open Access publishing in pan-
university strategies.
Gold Route - 
Stage 2: Embedding the Gold route 
48. The research community can lobby to convince
research funders and other stakeholders that mean-
ingful changes to the existing model for scholarly
publishing require investments (transition costs);
LERU and/or other universities can liaise with other
university associations on this matter.
49. Given that European scholarly monograph publish-
ing (especially in the humanities and social sciences)
is in flux, and that LERU institutions are involved in
institution-based monograph publishing (especially
in non-English languages), European institutions
could connect to the activities of the OAPEN net-
9
ADVICE PAPER - NO. 8, JUNE 2011
23 See http://www.soros.org/openaccess. 
24 The recommendation is primarily to publish in fully Open Access journals, where such journals exist in a subject field. 
25 It is recommended that an institutional Publication Fund is primarily allocated for paying publication charges for fully Open Access Journals
(Gold), not for Hybrid Journals in the first resort. Hybrid journals are subscription-based journals operating with an Open Access publishing
option, whereby an author pays a publication fee allowing the specific article to be Open Access. Both roads lead to Open Access and are examples
of how publishing models are changing (at different speeds) to support Open Access. Implementation is not easy. For example, who decides on
the allocation of funds? Is it ‘first come-first served’ until the annual allocation runs out? Or does every researcher have a credit limit? 
26 For example, BioMed Central, Public Library of Science (PLoS), Hindawi, Copernicus, Springer Open.
10
THE LERU ROADMAP TOWARDS OPEN ACCESS
work27 or other Open Access monograph publishing
initiatives, in order to promote Open Access publish-
ing of scholarly monographs. Guidance can be made
available to the wider university community.
Gold Route - Stage 3: Furthering the process
50. As in the Green route LERU and/or other universities
can work together in collaboration wherever possible. 
51. In order to contribute to changes in the existing
model for scholarly publishing, there is a need for an
overview of institutional involvements in commer-
cial non-Open Access journal and peer reviewed
monograph publishing, by means of an investigative
study of the yearly institutional output in terms of
numbers of articles and books, subject spread and
the in-kind editorial and refereeing work done by
institutional employees for different journals and
peer reviewed monographs. Creating such an
overview could offer a valuable starting point for
approaching specific journals and/or publishers to
discuss whether the overall contribution to specific
journals could be addressed in terms of bringing a
journal into an Open Access publishing mode, there-
by potentially unlocking those journals  from ‘big
deal’ subscription packages. Such a study would
help inform possible future developments in pub-
lishing activity, including Gold Open Access pub-
lishing.
V. External Subject-Based,
Discipline-Based or Funder
Repositories
52. Whilst this Roadmap focuses largely on University
Green and Gold Route Open Access initiatives,28 it is
important to note that there are subject-based, disci-
pline-based and research funder repositories which
seek to curate and provide access to research publi-
cations (of varying kinds) and/or to research data.
53. One of the challenging questions for universities is
how their repositories relate to these other reposito-
ries. At a practical level, for example, would a
researcher be asked to deposit work in both their uni-
versity repository and, say, an international reposito-
ry? If they submit work to one repository, should
metadata tags be used to ensure cross-linking?
27 See http://www.oapen.org/. OAPEN is an initiative in Open Access publishing for humanities and social sciences monographs. The consortium of
University-based academic publishers who make up OAPEN are all active in Open Access publishing. The OAPEN partners consist of a number
of European university presses and universities. The OAPEN project will explore ways of publishing scholarly work in Open Access, providing
access to important peer reviewed research from across Europe and exploring new business models.
28 See sections III and IV of this Roadmap.
VI. Appendices
Appendix 1 - 
Guidance to support the Roadmap 
This section identifies guidance in a number of areas in
the Open Access landscape, based on current practices
in LERU member institutions and elsewhere.
Green Route: Institutional Repositories and
Institutional Mandates
University of Helsinki 29
The University of Helsinki was the first university in
Finland to mandate that researchers deposit copies of
their research articles published in academic research
journals in the university’s open repository from 1
January 2010 onwards. The Open Access mandate and
the repository were integrated with the research infor-
mation system (TUHAT) in 2010. 
University of Minho 30
The University of Minho was the first institution in
Europe and second one worldwide to establish a man-
date, in 2004. 
University College London - UCL Discovery  31
At UCL, the move to adopt an institutional mandate was
achieved in two phases. In the first phase, UCL´s
Academic Board, in May 2009, agreed two principles to
underpin UCL’s publication activity and to support its
scholarly mission: 
• That, copyright permissions allowing, a copy of all
research outputs should be deposited in the UCL
repository in Open Access.
• The second phase of implementing the mandate was
accomplished in Autumn 2010 when UCL’s
Academic Board ratified a formal Publications Policy
which expands on the two principles agreed in 2009.
Close collaboration in the University’s Academic Board
and liaison with academic colleagues has been impor-
tant in taking forward a broad Open Access policy in
UCL. A second important driver has been the linking of
UCL’s Open Access mandate to a pan-university
Publications Policy with Open Access as the result, copy-
right permissions allowing.
Universiteit Utrecht 32
The university has a mandate for depositing doctoral
theses in the institutional repository. Graduate candi-
dates of the Universiteit Utrecht are required to submit a
digital copy of their thesis to the university library for
preservation in the institutional repository of Utrecht
University. The requirements are given in the relevant
university regulations.  
Universität Zürich 33
The university has been following an award-winning strat-
egy (“BioMed Central’s Open Access Institute of the Year
2009”) that is based on an institutional mandate for
depositing all published scientific work in the Zürich Open
Repository and Archive (ZORA), if there are no legal objec-
tions. ZORA content is the basis for publications in other
university systems such as the annual reports, websites of
researchers and evaluations. A website informs resear-
chers and includes a video on Open Access.
Green route: Copyright and Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR)
University College London 34
UCL has appointed the Director of Library Services as
Copyright Officer. The Library is actively clarifying and
informing guidance in UCL’s copyright framework for
research and education. The Library also teaches gradu-
ate students the basics of copyright and IPR manage-
ment, both in terms of students respecting third party
copyright and in protecting and exploiting their own
rights. The basic position taken by UCL is that academic
staff and students own the copyright in their intellectual
outputs, not the university.
Gold Route: Institutional Open Access funds for
Publishing in Open Access journals 
Open Access Publishing Fund, Universitat de Barcelona 35
The Universitat de Barcelona has established an Open
Access Publishing Fund and they have signed the
Compact for Open Access Equity, the first European
University to do so.
11
ADVICE PAPER - NO. 8, JUNE 2011
29 See http://www.helsinki.fi/openaccess/helda/english/index.html, http://www.helsinki.fi/openaccess/open%20access/english/index.html, 
https://tuhat.halvi.helsinki.fi/portal/.
30 See http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=Universidade%20do%20Minho.
31 See http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/.
32 See http://tinyurl.com/23f7f6h.
33 See http://www.zora.uzh.ch, http://www.oai.uzh.ch/index.php?mos_lng=en.
34 See http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/copyright.shtml.
35 See http://www.oacompact.org/news/2010/9/27/university-of-barcelona-joins-cope.html.
Open Access Publishing Fund, University of Notting-
ham (UK) 36
An institutional Open Access Publishing Fund was
established at the University of Nottingham in 2006. The
idea for the Fund came from Open Access work carried
out by Information Services, and it is now administered
by Research Innovation Services as part of the universi-
ty’s research support for university staff. This Fund is
available for use by any member of staff who wishes to
make their research output freely and openly accessible,
regardless of their source of funding or research area. It
is intended that this Fund be used to pay for charges
associated with the normal methods of Open Access
publishing. 
LUND Publication Fund 37
The costs for articles, where the corresponding author
has a Lund affiliation, will be covered in full by the Head
Office, Lund University Libraries when published in
Open Access Journals (Lund uses a restricted list of Open
Access Publishers). In 2010, €175,000 was available to
pay such publication charges.
Gold route: Institutional Journal Publishing units 
University Library Utrecht 38
Utrecht University Library founded an Open Access unit
in the Library in 2004. This unit, Igitur, publishes 15
Open Access Journals and is a leading Open Access pub-
lishing player in the Netherlands. Editorial Boards are
recruited from Utrecht University and from outside the
University. 
Collaborations
DARE Project – The Netherlands 39
DARE, Digital Academic Repositories, co-ordinated by
the SURF Foundation, was a national project which
aimed to establish Institutional repositories at all Dutch
Universities, meeting OAI (Open  Archive Initiative)
standards. Through a collaborative take-up of this initia-
tive, common problems were tackled and solutions were
shared:
• The first milestone was DAREnet, a search portal for
all Dutch Institutional repositories.
• The second milestone was Cream of Science:
research output from more than 207 authors digi-
tized and archived, more than 57% Open Access.
Funding Agencies 
Austrian Science Fund (FWF) 40
The FWF has opened an Open Access Fund for individ-
ual scientific publications. The purpose of the Fund is
the promotion of scientific dissemination in an econom-
ical manner in order to make Austrian research outputs
available to a broader public. 
NWO 41
The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
has opened an Incentive Fund of €5 million to support
Open Access publication for 2010. The aim of this Fund
is to increase awareness of Open Access and to encour-
age the Open Access publication of NWO results with
NARCIS. 
Wellcome Trust 42
The Wellcome Trust will provide grant holders with
additional funding, through their institutions, to cover
Open Access charges, where appropriate, in order to
meet the Trust's requirements. The Wellcome Trust
encourages authors and publishers to license research
papers such that they may be freely copied and re-used,
provided that such uses are fully attributed. 
Appendix 2 - Members of the LERU Open
Access Working Group meeting in UCL
(University College London) on
15 December 2009
• Paul Ayris, Director of UCL Library Services and UCL
Copyright Officer, University College London, then
Vice-President of LIBER (Association of European
Research Libraries), Co-Chair of the LERU WG on
open access
• Lars Björnshauge, Director of Libraries, Lunds uni-
versitet, Co-Chair of the LERU WG on open access
• Mel Collier, Head Librarian, K.U. Leuven
• Catherine Forestier, Head of Library Services,
Université de Strasbourg
• Saskia Franken, Managing Director Igitur, Utrecht
Publishing & Archiving Services, Utrecht University
Library
• Paola Galimberti, Università degli Studi di Milano
• Giuliana Giustino, Head Librarian, Università degli
Studi di Milano 
12
THE LERU ROADMAP TOWARDS OPEN ACCESS
36 See http://tinyurl.com/2wjabmy, http://tinyurl.com/342vxoy.
37 See http://tinyurl.com/38k5w9k, http://www.sciecom.org/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/viewFile/1811/1416.
38 See http://www.uu.nl/igitur.
39 See http://tinyurl.com/27yzddb.
40 See http://tinyurl.com/3yrsuv9, http://www.fwf.ac.at/en/projects/stand_alone_publications.html. 
41 See http://www.nwo.nl, http://tinyurl.com/237dvjm.
42 See http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Policy/Spotlight-issues/Open-access/index.htm.
• Véronique Hadengue, Head of Scientific
Information, Université de Genève
• Antje Kellersohn, Head of Library Services, Albert-
Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
• Kees Konings, Chief Division of Public Services &
Collections, Universiteit Leiden 
• Isabelle Kratz, Director, Bibliothèque Universitaire
Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris
• Christian Larose, IT Manager, Bibliothèque
Universitaire Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris
• Jean-Louis Lions, Directeur du Service Commun de la
Documentation, Library Services, Université Paris-Sud 11
• Katrien Maes, LERU Chief Policy Officer
• Mary Phillips, Director of Research Planning, Office
of the Vice-Provost (Research), UCL
• Christopher Pressler, then Director of Research and
Learning Resources, University of Nottingham
• Volker Schallehn, Open Access Officer, University
Library, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
• Kaisa Sinikara, University Librarian, University of
Helsinki
• James Toon, Project Manager ERIS, University of
Edinburgh
• Nol Verhagen, Head Librarian, Universiteit van
Amsterdam
• Saskia de Vries, Director, Amsterdam University Press
• Ingeborg Zimmermann, Hauptbibliothek Univer-
sität Zürich, Forschungsbibliothek Irchel
Appendix 3 - Further References 
I. Organisations, Initiatives & Associations 
Repositories  
• COAR 43
The Confederation of Open Access Repositories
(COAR) is a not-for-profit association of repository
initiatives launched in October 2009. It aims to
enhance greater visibility and application of research
outputs through global networks of Open Access
digital repositories. Institutions can become a mem-
ber of COAR. 
Publishers
• OASPA 44
OASPA represent the interests of Open Access jour-
nal (and book) publishers globally in all scientific,
technical and scholarly disciplines. 
• OAPEN 45
OAPEN is an initiative in Open Access publishing for
humanities and social sciences monographs. The
consortium of university-based academic publishers
who make up OAPEN believe that the time is ripe to
bring the successes of scientific Open Access pub-
lishing to the humanities and social sciences. 
• COPE 46
The Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity
provides information on the topic of Open Access
publishing. The Compact for Open Access publish-
ing equity supports equity of business models by
committing each university to the timely establish-
ment of durable mechanisms for underwriting rea-
sonable publication charges for articles written by its
faculty and published in fee-based Open Access jour-
nals, and for which other institutions would not be
expected to provide funds. 
Open Access Advocacy
• SPARC Europe 47
SPARC Europe aims to be a voice for universities and
academic libraries whose goal is to make Open
Access work in their academic communities. 
• Enabling Open Scholarship 48
EOS offers an outreach service to universities and
research institutes - whether members or not - that
need help, advice, guidance or information on Open
Scholarship issues. 
II. Databases & Services 
Repositories
• OpenDOAR 49
Repositories can be registered in OpenDOAR (a
SHERPA service), which currently includes details of
almost 700 European institutional repositories.
OpenDOAR is constantly updated and harvested by
Google. 
13
ADVICE PAPER - NO. 8, JUNE 2011
43 See http://www.coar-repositories.org.
44 See http://ww.oaspa.org.
45 See http://www.oapen.org.
46 See http://www.oacompact.org.
47 See http://www.sparceurope.org.
48 See http://www.openscholarship.org.  
49 See http://www.opendoar.org.
Open Access Journals 
• DOAJ 50
An authoritative source for Open Access journals is
the Directory of Open Access Journals, operated by
Lund University Libraries Head Office and funded by
universities and library consortia. 
Portals
• DART-Europe 51
A portal under the auspices of LIBER (Association of
European Research Libraries), which gives access to
the full-text of European Open Access research theses.
Copyright Policies & Institutional Policies 
• SHERPA Juliet 52
A summary of policies given by various research fun-
ders as part of their grant awards. 
• SPARC Institutional Open Access Fund Guide 53
Guidance on campus-based Open Access publishing
funds. 
• SHERPA Romeo 54
A tool for discovering the details of publishers’ copy-
right policies and the possibilities for archiving
research outputs in Open Access repositories. 
• Copyright Tool Box 55
The toolbox (SURF Foundation & JISC) has been
developed to assist authors and publishers to achieve
a balance between granting maximum access to a
journal article and financial compensation for the
publication by the publisher of this article. 
Open Access Publication Charges
• Paying for Open Access publication charges  56
A report issued in 2009 by Universities UK and the
UK’s Research Information Network. 
III. European Policies
• European Commission 57
In 2008 the European Commission launched an
Open Access pilot project in the 7th Framework
Programme. In October 2010 the European
Commission in its Communication on the
Innovation Union singled out the “dissemination,
transfer and use of research results, including
through open access to publications and data from
publicly funded research” as one of the commit-
ments the European Union should make to realise a
true European Research Area.
• European Research Council 58
In 2007 the ERC Scientific Council published guide-
lines for open access, requiring that all peer-reviewed
publications from ERC-funded research projects be
deposited on publication into an appropriate research
repository where available and subsequently made
Open Access within 6 months of publication. The
guidelines also state that the ERC considers essential
that primary data are deposited to the relevant data-
bases as soon as possible, preferably immediately
after publication and in any case not later than 6
months after the date of publication.
• OpenAIRE 59
OpenAIRE aims to support the implementation of
Open Access in Europe. It provides the means to pro-
mote and realize the widespread adoption of Open
Access policies, as set out by the ERC Scientific
Council Guidelines for Open Access and the Open
Access pilot launched by the European Commission.
The remit of OpenAIRE is FP7 research projects, not
national research outputs. 
• European Universities Association 60
The European Universities Association has issued a
set of Recommendations on Open Access dissemi-
nation, which were adopted by the EUA Council on
26 March 2008. 
14
THE LERU ROADMAP TOWARDS OPEN ACCESS
50 See http://www.doaj.org. 
51 See http://www.dart-europe.eu, http://www.libereurope.eu.
52 See http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/index.php.   
53 See http://tinyurl.com/28wqpdn. 
54 See http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/.
55 See http://copyrighttoolbox.surf.nl/copyrighttoolbox/.
56 See http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/research-funding-policy-and-guidance/paying-open-access-publication-charges.
57 See http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/index.cfm?fuseaction=public.topic&id=1294&lang=1,
http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/index.cfm?fuseaction=public.topic&id=1300&lang=1,
http://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-union/index_en.cfm?pg=keydocs.
58 See http://erc.europa.eu/pdf/ScC_Guidelines_Open_Access_revised_Dec07_FINAL.pdf. 
59 See www.openaire.eu.
60 See http://www.eua.be/eua-work-and-policy-area/research-and-innovation/Open-Access.aspx.  
About LERU
LERU was founded in 2002 as an association of research-intensive universities sharing the values of high-quality
teaching in an environment of internationally competitive research. The League is committed to: education through
an awareness of the frontiers of human understanding; the creation of new knowledge through basic research, which
is the ultimate source of innovation in society; the promotion of research across a broad front, which creates a unique
capacity to reconfigure activities in response to new opportunities and problems. The purpose of the League is to advo-
cate these values, to influence policy in Europe and to develop best practice through mutual exchange of experience.
LERU publications
LERU publishes its views on research and higher education in several types of publications, including position papers,
advice papers, briefing papers and notes. 
Advice papers provide targeted, practical and detailed analyses of research and higher education matters. They antic-
ipate developing or respond to ongoing issues of concern across a broad area of policy matters or research topics.
Advice papers usually provide concrete recommendations for action to certain stakeholders at European, national or
other levels.  
LERU publications are freely available in print and online at www.leru.org.
ADVICE PAPER - NO. 8, JUNE 2011
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