SNSF unveils open access directive

The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) has issued a ‘Directive on Open Access to Scientific Publications of Projects sponsored by the SNSF’ that comes into force on September 1, 2007.

SNSF highlights that researchers will retain the right of choice over commercial publication/first publication and will also be able to choose their own strategy for meeting the open access publication requirement.

In practice, the SNSF will require funding recipients to publish their results on the internet in electronic form. To this end, their research should be accessible free of charge as an open access publication parallel to any commercial publication.

According to the SNSF, grantees may deposit their work in institutional or disciplinary repositories, as the funding provider does not have its own repository. Any publisher embargo should be respected. Funding recipients are also free to publish their research in a peer-reviewed open access journal.

The move follows the SNSF’s belief that research sponsored by public funding should be publicly accessible as far as possible. The aim of establishing open access to scientific publications is to increase the circulation and transparency of research results within the scientific community and to significantly broaden access to scientific results.

SNSF also believes open access can lead to more efficient publication of research projects and facilitate easier and cheaper access for smaller disciplines to the publication market.