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Open Access policy for public sector research funds and foundations

Independent Research Fund Denmark, Innovation Fund Denmark and Danish National Research Foundation approved the Open Access policy April 2019.

Research grants from Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF), Innovation Fund Denmark and Danish National Research Foundation (in the following referred to as funds and foundations) are essential for Danish and international research, innovation and economic growth.

Research furthers knowledge and drives the intellectual, social and economic development. Research funds and foundations find it important to strengthen the effect of research by ensuring free and cost free digital access for everybody to publicly financed research results. Open Access (OA) is free of charge and free access to research results in the form of publications in journals and conference proceedings. OA gives the society access, insight to and the opportunity to utilise research results.

Since June 2012, the public sector funds and foundations in Denmark have had a common Open Access policy. Based on Denmark’s National Strategy for Open Access adopted in June 2018 the goals and requirements of OA were tightened. 

In order to fulfil and support the realisation of the stricter national goals and requirements for OA, the public sector funds and foundations in Denmark have revised the common fund policy. The funds will hereby continuously monitor and stimulate the realisation of the national OA strategy, among other things by imposing requirements for the grant holder in relation to OA

With the revised policy, the funds and foundations want to contribute further to the dissemination of OA as a standard in scientific publications in the form of Green Open Access. The aim is to ensure that all scientific articles, the quality of which has been assured by peer review and which have been published in a scientific magazine, can be read and distributed without any financial, technical or legal restrictions.

This policy means that published scientific articles, which are the result of full or partial financing by funds and foundations, must be made freely available to everybody via Open Access with the permission of the magazine.

With this policy, fund and foundations also want to make sure that the researchers will get a better foothold regarding copyright for their own articles in connection with scientific publication.

Furthermore, funds and foundations have adopted the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, which is a milestone in the definition of and work with Open Access.

Requirements for the grant holder

  • The grant holder is, if the magazine allows it, requested to parallel publish a digital version of the final, peer-reviewed scientific article, which has been accepted by a scientific magazine. The article, which is a result of full or partial financing by research councils and foundations, must be parallel published in an institutional or subject-specific repository, i.e. a digital archive.
  • The parallel publishing of the scientific article can - at the request of the magazine – take place after an embargo period, i.e. a period in which the article is only available in the scientific magazine, of up to six or twelve months after publication in the scientific magazine. The waiting periods for the specific research areas must be as follows:

Health science - 6 months
Natural science - 6 months
Engineering science - 6 months
Agricultural and veterinarian science - 6 months
Social science - 12 months
The humanities - 12 months

  • The final, peer-reviewed scientific article, which is subject to parallel publication, must include all graphic and other materials prepared for the article. Research data shall be exempted.
  • The grant holder is responsible for making sure that relevant publication or copyright agreements with publishers are in accordance with the conditions for grants laid down by funds and foundations in connection with parallel publication. The funds and foundations want the grant holder to maintain copyright to the widest possible extent.

  • Such conditions shall be observed according to current copyright rules.

Which types of publication are included?

The request for parallel publication only includes scientific articles and conference proceedings in journals and proceedings with an ISSN number.

This means that the request for parallel publication does not include:

  • scientific monographs
  • anthologies
  • PhD dissertations
  • doctorate dissertations
  • publications on patented discoveries.

What does this mean for the grant holder?

For the grant holder, this policy means:

I. That the grant holder must in connection with acceptance of an article for publication in a scientific magazine try to maintain the rights to parallel publish an edition of the peer-reviewed and accepted scientific article.

Research institutions and university colleges must, cf. Denmark’s National Strategy for OA, inform and assist researchers with regard to the practical use of the OA publishing infrastructure, e.g. in the form of clear guidelines and staff who can offer assistance.

The funds and foundations encourage to the greatest possible extent to minimise the use of hybrid Open Access (also known as double dipping, which involves payment as well as license and article processing charges to release articles for Open Access). 

It is accepted that the quality of journals can be weighted more heavily than the need to publish in OA. It is therefore, recommended only to publish in an OA magazine if the profession finds that such a magazine exists at a high, well-reputed quality level.

II. That the grant holder ensures in connection with publication - possibly after the waiting period - that the article is parallel published in an institutional or subject-specific repository.

In case of doubt regarding the concrete approach in connection with parallel publication, please contact the research library at the relevant institution or the responsible operator of the subject-specific digital archive.

III. That in connection with reporting to funds and foundations the grant holder informs whether publishing in OA with regard to scientific publications as a consequence of full or partial financing

If articles, as a consequence of full or partial financing by funds and foundations, are published in OA after the final reporting, the funds and foundations must be contacted.

Open Access monitoring

The funds and foundations must monitor whether the grant holder publishes in OA. In addition, the funds and foundations continuously evaluate if consequences are needed if the grant holder does not comply with the OA policy and publish the research results in OA, if possible. 

Evaluation of the policy

No later than two years after the publication of this policy, it will be evaluated with a view to a discussion of the need to revise the policy.

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last modified June 12, 2019