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Research funder open access policies

In-scope publications

The new Horizon Europe open access policy applies to publications arising from Horizon Europe Funding (2021-2027). For outputs funded by Horizon 2020 funding refer to Open Access to Scientific Publications and Open Access to Research Data in Horizon 2020.

The following peer reviewed publications resulting from Horizon Europe funded research must comply with the open access requirements:

  • articles
  • books/monographs
  • edited volumes
  • book chapters (these are considered to be similar to articles)
  • PhD theses (if formally published through a publisher).

How to comply with the policy

Authors may publish in a subscription journal, an open access publishing journal or platform, or a hybrid publishing venue, provided that the final published version, or accepted manuscript is deposited:

Only publishing in an open access venue without depositing in a repository does not comply with the open access requirement.

Gold open access

You must check before submitting that your preferred journal is compliant. You can use the following to check this:

Fully open access journals and platforms Search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). An Article Processing Charge (APC) is payable. APC payments for these journals may be charged to the project during the duration of the project, but these costs should be included in your project proposal.
Gold open access in subscription journals in City's transformative agreements Refer to the guide on open access transformative agreements. You can use this guide to help check which journals are included, and how to use the agreement.
Open Research Europe EC grant holders can also publish free of charge on the Open Research Europe platform. It is an OA publishing platform created by the EC for the publication of research stemming from Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe funding across all subject areas.

When publishing using the gold open access route you are still required to make the final published version available in a trusted repository with a CC-BY licence. 

If you choose to publish gold open access in a hybrid journal that is not covered by the above options, Horizon Europe project funding may not be used.

Subscription journals

When publishing in a subscription journal you must be able to make the accepted manuscript freely available in a trusted repository with a CC-BY licence on or before first publication.

The following will help you identify if a publisher will allow this:

Publisher websites You can find permissions for the use of accepted manuscripts in repositories in publishers' 'self archiving' or 'green open access' pages.
Sherpa Romeo open access policy search tool Search for the journal title, then select 'Accepted Manuscript' in the publisher policy section.
Contact the Publications Team The publications team will be able to help you with information on permitted use of the accepted manuscript.

For subscription journals that do not allow the deposit of the accepted manuscript with a CC-BY licence, you must include the following statement in the funding acknowledgement statement on your submitted manuscript, and any covering letter accompanying the submission:

'For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising'.

If the publisher does not accept the above statement, you may have to consider submitting to another journal.

What is a trusted repository?

Trusted repositories are:

  • Certified repositories or disciplinary and domain repositories, such as Europe PMC, commonly used by research communities and recognised internationally.
  • General purpose repositories or institutional repositories (such as CRO) that present the essential characteristics of trusted repositories.

The following are not considered to be repositories:

  • personal websites and databases
  • publisher websites
  • cloud storage services
  • Academia.edu, ResearchGate and similar platforms.

Licensing requirements

Publications must be licensed:

Monographs and other long text formats may exclude commercial uses and derivative works using:

Acknowledgement of funding

Horizon Europe funding must be acknowledged in all funded outputs. This should include details of:

  • Horizon Europe or Euratom funding
  • the grant project name, acronym and number.

Validation requirements

Information must be provided via the repository, or copy deposited in the repository about any research output or other tools and instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the publication. This may include:

  • data
  • software
  • algorithms
  • protocols
  • models
  • workflows
  • electronic notebooks.

It should include a detailed description of the research output/tool/instrument, how to access it, any dependencies on commercial products, potential version/type, potential parameters etc.