Open Access (OA) means unrestricted availability of published scholarly information on the Internet. OA makes research findings more useful and accessible to more people.

There are two main ways of achieving OA.
One is ‘parallel publishing’. The researcher publishes an article, in the usual way, in an academic journal (or conference publication) without OA. Simultaneously, or after some delay, a copy is deposited in an open archive to which there is unrestricted online access. Today, most Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs) have open archives. Publications registered and deposited in the HEIs’ open archives are also to be made available through SwePub, the national search service. The archived copy must be the manuscript that has been fully reviewed and approved for publication, either in the publisher’s graphic format or in the form of the author’s own version.
 

The second option is to publish the article in an ‘Open Access journal’, where it immediately becomes freely available online. In some cases, OA journals charge authors for publication.

Open Access for researchers with funding from 2010

With effect from the 2010 application process, researchers awarded RJ grants have been required to publish their peer-reviewed work in academic journals and conference publications so that it is freely accessible on the Internet. As for monographs and book chapters, RJ urges and encourages researchers to publish these too with unrestricted online access. RJ provides special grants for OA publishing.

RJ covers the costs of OA publishing through a standard grant of SEK 30,000 per project, which is added to the project budget.

• If the researcher opts for parallel publishing, the article must be deposited in an open archive immediately after its publication in the journal. The article must then be made freely available in the shortest possible time, or within a maximum of six months.
• If the publisher does not allow parallel publishing or imposes a time lag exceeding six months before OA publishing may take place, the researcher must ask the publisher for an OA addendum to the publishing contract or else choose another journal. (Click on engelsk version for a sample letter and addendum to use as a starting point.)
• If this is unsuccessful, the researcher should ask RJ for an exemption from the OA rule and, in so doing, provide an account of attempts made.
• If the researcher opts to publish work in an OA journal, the article should also be deposited in the host HEI’s open archives.
• The researcher’s final financial and academic reports must state whether OA publishing has taken place and, if so, specify the publications concerned. If the researcher has had no work published with Open Access, the reasons must be specified.

Open Access for researchers currently engaged in projects

RJ wishes to urge and encourage those researchers who have current RJ grants to publish their peer-reviewed work in journals and in conference publications so that it is freely accessible on the Internet. The same applies to monographs and book chapters. RJ provides publication grants for OA.

To facilitate OA publishing, RJ provides grants for this purpose up to a maximum of SEK 30,000 per project.

• For researchers who already have RJ grants, support for OA publishing should be applied for either at the same time as a grant for printing a research publication or in a separate procedure.
• The application, sent by email to the research secretary most closely involved, must contain:

1. the project leader’s name
2. the title and reference number of the project
3. confirmation from the publisher that the article has been accepted for publication with Open Access
4. notification from the publisher of any fee charged. 

• A researcher who receives a grant for OA publishing is subject to the same guidelines as all researchers awarded RJ grants with effect from the 2010 application process.
• The researcher’s final financial and academic reports must state whether OA publishing has taken place and, if so, specify the publications concerned. If the researcher has been awarded a grant for OA publishing but nonetheless had no work published with Open Access, the reasons must be specified.

For details of relevant journals, see the Directory of Open Access Journals.

For details of publishers’ rules about parallel publishing, see SHERPA/RoMEO, ‘Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving’. The site lists international publishers. In the event that a specific journal is not included, go to the website concerned and address any queries directly to the publisher.