How to comply with Open Access requirements - Horizon Europe

Version 1.1 of the “Horizon Europe (HORIZON) Euratom Research and Training Programme (EURATOM) - General Model Grant Agreement (HE MGA — Multi & Mono)” was published on 15 April 2022.

A not yet finalised version of the Annotated Model Grant Agreement has also been published. 

Horizon Europe reaffirms the value of open science for the dissemination of knowledge and as an engine for innovation and development. In line with these principles, the programme, compared to Horizon 2020, calls for a wider dissemination of research results through immediate Open Access to publications and FAIR data management according to the principle “as open as possible as closed as necessary”.

WARNING

Open Access news concerning peer-reviewed publications 

  • All articles must be deposited as soon as possible or, at the latest, on the date of publication and immediate open access must be guaranteed. Embargoes are not permitted
  • Articles must be released under a CC BY licence
  • CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND and CC BY-NC-ND licences may also be used for monographs

Authors are required to maintain sufficient intellectual property rights to be able to fulfil open access requirements, so it is imperative that they are informed of their obligations before signing any publication contract.

GA: Annex 5 – Art. 17 p. 110

“The beneficiaries must ensure open access to peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to their results. In particular, they must ensure that:

- at the latest at the time of publication, a machine-readable electronic copy of the published version, or the final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication, is deposited in a trusted repository for scientific publications

- immediate open access is provided to the deposited publication via the repository, under the latest available version of the Creative Commons Attribution International Public Licence (CC BY) or a licence with equivalent rights; for monographs and other long-text formats, the licence may exclude commercial uses and derivative works (e.g., CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND) and

information is given via the repository about any research output or any other tools and instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the scientific publication.

Beneficiaries (or authors) must retain sufficient intellectual property rights to comply with the open access requirements.”

  • Already at the time of manuscript submission, authors are strongly encouraged to notify publishers of the constraints to which they are subject by adding a statement along the lines of the one proposed in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide (p. 48):

This work was funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe grant [grant number]. As set out in the Grant Agreement, beneficiaries must ensure that at the latest at the time of publication, open access is provided via a trusted repository to the published version or the final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication under the latest available version of the Creative Commons Attribution International Public Licence (CC BY) or a licence with equivalent rights. CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND or equivalent licenses could be applied to long-text formats.”

  • If the publishing contract is contrary to the obligations of the grant (embargo request or non-compliant licence), the author is obliged to negotiate the terms of the contract (the university will provide authors with a model letter according to the European Commission’s guidelines, which are currently being finalised).

What to deposit

Within the framework of the Horizon Europe programme, authors are obliged to comply with the European Commission’s Open Access requirements by making peer-reviewed publications available for open access

AGA: Annex 5 – Art. 2.1 p. 154

The beneficiaries must ensure open access to peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to their results”

“This includes articles and long-text formats, such as monographs and other types of books”

How to publish to be compliant

- Gold Road: pubblicare su una rivista (o con un editore nel caso di libri) ad accesso aperto immediato. Eventuali APC possono essere richieste dall’editore. La versione editoriale deve essere depositata in un repository affidabile (Porto@Iris).

- Green Road: pubblicare in una rivista tradizionale in abbonamento. L'Author's Accepted Manuscript deve essere depositato SENZA embargo. La licenza DEVE essere sempre CC BY o equivalente.

ATTENZIONE:

It is ONLY possible to apply for reimbursement for publications in fully Open Access journals/books.

In case you want to use the Red/Hybrid Road (publication in a traditional subscription journal that allows Open Access of some articles against the additional payment of an APC) there is NO refund

GA: Annex 5 – Article 17, p. 111

“Only publication fees in full open access venues for peer-reviewed scientific publications are eligible for reimbursement”

AGA: Annex 5 – Article 2.1, p. 157

“Publishing fees (including page charges or colour charges) for publications in other venues, for example in subscription journals (including hybrid journals) or in books that contain some scholarly content that is open and some that is closed are NOT eligible costs.”

Read and publish” contracts are in place with some publishers: the costs of publishing the OA are borne by the Politecnico and not by the author. The editorial version must be deposited in a reliable repository (Porto@Iris).

The European Commission offers the possibility to publish on Open Research Europe, an EC-funded open access publishing platform.

ORE is offered as an additional publication option to Horizon Europe beneficiaries and fulfils all requirements for open access to scientific publications that are archived in the Zenodo universal repository.

Versions

As per the Horizon Europe programme, the versions that can be deposited are the editorial version or the Postprint/Author’s accepted manuscript

AGA: Annex 5 – Art. 2.1 p. 155

Immediate open access through the repository must be provided either to the author final manuscript (incorporating all revisions following peer-review, known as Author Accepted Manuscript or AAM) or to the final published version, known as the Version of Record (VoR).

Where

Publications must be deposited in a repository of scientific publications that guarantees free access and long-term preservation:

  • Institutional: for researchers at the Politecnico: Porto@Iris
  • Subject repositories (ArXiv, Repec, BioarXiv...)
  • Centralised (Zenodo)

It is not enough that the publications are on the project site or on the publisher’s site if they have been published in open access.

You cannot deposit your publications on social platforms that require registration for access and/or do not guarantee digital preservation over time (e.g. Academia.edu and Researchgate).

We would like to remind you that Politecnico researchers are already required to deposit their publications in Porto@Iris as per the Institutional Policy.

 

Compulsory metadata

In the description phase of the publication, certain fields are required to be filled in:

  • Author
  • Title
  • Date of publication
  • Journal title (publication venue)
  • Distribution licence
  • Reference “European Union (EU)” and “Horizon Europe”.
  •  The name, number and acronym of the project
  •  A persistent identifier (e.g. DOI / ISBN)

In the Acknowledgements included in publications (both published and Postprint/Accepted manuscript), the funding programme and grant number must be stated.

GA: Annex 5 – Art. 17 p. 111

“Metadata of deposited publications must be open under a Creative Common Public Domain Dedication (CC 0) or equivalent, in line with the FAIR principles (in particular machine-actionable) and provide information at least about the following: publication (author(s), title, date of publication, publication venue); Horizon Europe or Euratom funding; grant project name, acronym and number; licensing terms; persistent identifiers for the publication, the authors involved in the action and, if possible, for their organisations and the grant. Where applicable, the metadata must include persistent identifiers for any research output or any other tools and instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the publication”

Penalties for non-compliance

Non-compliance with Open Access obligations may lead to reduced grants and potential penalties

GA: Art. 17.5 p. 51

“If a beneficiary breaches any of its obligations under this Article, the grant may be reduced (see Article 28). Such breaches may also lead to other measures described in Chapter 5.”