The Politecnico embraces the principles of Open Access to scientific literature and promotes the free dissemination of research results produced at the University. By Rector’s Decree No. 87 of 15 February 2019, the University Policy on Open Access to Scientific Publications was issued.
The Politecnico considers Open Access an added value for research evaluation processes and recognises the connection between Open Access and the evaluation process as an essential part of the commitment to Open Access. For internal evaluation activities, the Politecnico only takes into consideration the contributions deposited in the Institutional Repository, complete with metadata and open or restricted access annex.
- The Open Access Commission of the Politecnico was established to implement, promote and support Open Access. The main tasks are the formulation and definition of proposals for the promotion of Open Access and the evaluation of possible exemptions to Open Access requested by publishers.
- The Open Access Working Group was set up to support publishers in copyright management and, in accordance with publishers’ policies, to make contributions deposited in the institutional repository public whenever possible, intervening if necessary on metadata and attachments to ensure compliance with quality standards.
The transformative contract is a new type of contract stipulated between institutions (or consortia) and publishers that aims to convert the current contractual model of read-only access to scientific periodicals to the “Read & Publish” model.
The new “Read & Publish” model provides for the joint negotiation of both access rights and publication fees in OA for authors affiliated to the institution.
In this way, the costs for publishing scientific articles in open access (APC - Article Processing Charges) no longer have to be borne by the authors but are borne directly by the institutions to which they belong.
The main advantages of these new contracts are:
- facilitate publishers’ transition to full open access of scientific publications;
- counteract the so-called “double dipping” phenomenon whereby the same institution is forced to pay the publisher a fee for reading scientific journals (subscriptions) and, in addition, authors to pay APCs for the publication of research results funded by the institution itself;
- reduce, and eventually eliminate, publication costs for authors.
Through the CRUI-CARE consortium, the Politecnico has signed transformative contracts with the following publishers: