Open Access

Research publications produced by NCCR researchers should be made publicly accessible without any restrictions or delays; this applies to all publications, e.g., articles, book chapters, books.

Read more about the individual models (gold road, green road, hybrid model) below.

For further information concerning the guidelines to meet SNSF requirements for open-access publishing, please follow this link: Open Access 

  • Gold road

    The gold road refers to publishing an article in a purely open-access journal or OA book that grants immediate access to all articles. Access to the document is immediate and free for all on the publisher's website. The publication costs (Article Processing Charges, APCs) are either covered by the SNSF or (partially) by institutional agreements established between publishers and research institutions. This is the recommended and prioritized model.

    How to proceed:

    1. Please check if the journal is listed in the OA journals directory:  Directory of Open Access Journals or  ChronosHub;  
    2. See how authors can apply for open-access funding to cover the costs of gold road publishing:  Funding OA publications; 
    3. Publishing costs are covered after application in addition to funding through ongoing grants. Applications should be made here.

    Institutional agreements 

    Consortia of research institutions in collaboration with consortia of national libraries negotiate nationwide open-access agreements with major academic publishing houses regarding licences for access to digital publications.

     Read more about the national agreements and negotiations with publishers: swissuniversities for Switzerland, DEAL-Konsortium for Germany, and Kemö for Austria. 

     Consult your institution’s specific agreements here: University of Fribourg, EPFL, EMPA, ETHZ, TU Darmstadt, Paris Lodron University Salzburg

  • Green road

    If they follow the green road, researchers self-archive in a public repository their scientific articles, books, and book chapters published in a subscription-based publishing platform. The publisher version (published PDF) or the accepted manuscript after peer-reviewing (author’s accepted manuscript, post-print) should be stored in the repository for self-archiving.

    An institutional or disciplinary repository can be used for archiving the document immediately* or after an embargo period.

    *For grant applications submitted from 1 January 2023: Embargo periods are no longer permissible for articles and are limited to a maximum of 12 months for books and book chapters.

    For grant applications submitted before 1 January 2023, an embargo period of a maximum of 6 months for articles and 12 months for books and book chapters is acceptable.

    Check your institutional repositories here: FOLIA University of Fribourg, Infoscience EPFL, Research collection ETHZ, DORA Empa, Yoda CSEM, ePLUS (Paris Lodron University Salzburg), TU prints TU Darmstadt.

  • Hybrid model

    For a fee, many publishers offer immediate open-access publishing for individual articles in journals that are otherwise subscription-based. Publishing following the hybrid road is accepted by SNSF, but not financially supported by SNSF.