For peer-reviewed scholarly publications (such as journal articles) resulting from FWF projects approved before 1 January 2021, the following Open Access policy (pdf, 89KB) applies.

For peer-reviewed book publications such as monographs, edited volumes, etc., the Open Access Policy for Peer-Reviewed Book Publications applies.

The following Open Access guidelines apply to peer-reviewed scholarly publications (such as journal articles) resulting from FWF projects approved after 31 December 2020:

I. Open Access Options

In accordance with the Berlin Declaration and Plan S of cOAlition S, the FWF requires all project leaders and project staff members to publish their peer-reviewed publications open access on the Internet if they result in whole or in part from projects supported by the FWF.

Three open access publication options are available:

Option 1: Publication in an open access publication venue (Gold Open Access)

Open access to publications can be guaranteed by direct publication in an open access publication venue (e.g., academic journal, publication platform). In any case, the Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY licence¹ (or an equivalent open licence) must be used for publication. Journals and publication platforms must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and meet the technical requirements of Plan S. For scholarly contributions in edited volumes, the peer-review process must be presented transparently on the website of the publication venue.

Publication in an open access publication venue may require the payment of a fee to the publisher (see IV. "Publication costs").

Option 2: Publication in a transformative open access venue (Hybrid Open Access)

Authors may publish individual contributions² in subscription venues open access. This option is possible if a transformative open access agreement exists between the publisher and the FWF and/or an Austrian research institution (see list of agreements) or the journal is a transformative open access journal according to the criteria of cOAlition S. In any case, the Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY licence (or an equivalent open licence) must be used for publications.

Option 3: Archiving of the accepted manuscript with a CC BY licence (Green Open Access)

Open access can also be achieved by self-archiving the version accepted by the publisher (accepted manuscript) in a registered repository that is listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) and meets the technical requirements of Plan S. Self-archiving must take place at the time of publication (zero embargo) and, in any case, the Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY licence (or equivalent open licence) must be used.

II. Procedure

Researchers must follow the steps below to ensure compliance with the FWF’s Open Access Policy.

1. Use the Journal Checker Tool

The cOAlition S Journal Checker Tool should be used to check whether a publication venue is compliant with the FWF's Open Access Policy and which of the above-mentioned options you can use – see https://journalcheckertool.org/

2. Acknowledgement and Copyright

The following text must be included in all publications upon submission:

'This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [Grant number]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.'

To ensure compliance with the FWF’s Open Access policy, a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY public copyright licence must be applied to all submissions to peer-reviewed journals.
For further information please see Plan S Rights Retention Strategy.

III. Archiving

Regardless of the open access option chosen (see I.), the publication must be deposited in a repository by the publisher or the authors for long-term archiving from the date of publication. Either institutional or discipline-specific repositories can be chosen for this purpose (see Directory of Open Access Repositories OpenDOAR).

In the case of publications from the life sciences (or related subject areas), authors are obliged to make their refereed publications freely accessible in the Europe PMC repository. Projects affected by this will be informed separately by Europe PMC by e-mail.

IV. Publication Costs

In all FWF programmes, applications for funding to cover the costs of peer-reviewed scholarly articles in academic journals, on publication platforms, in edited volumes, proceedings etc. can be submitted for up to three years after the end of the project, provided that they comply with the FWF’s Open Access Policy and the guidelines for “Peer-reviewed Publications”.

Funding to cover the costs of other peer-reviewed publication formats such as monographs, entire proceedings, edited volumes, scientific databases, and other web-based formats can be applied for through the “Stand-Alone Publications” programme.

V. Documentation

Open access activities and compliance with the FWF’s Open Access Policy must be documented in the final report to the FWF. This is done by means of a persistent identifier through which the full text of the publication can be viewed, read, and downloaded. For further information, see Research Documentation.

VI. Other Outputs

For other research outputs, please see Policy on Open Access to Research Data.

¹ In exceptional cases, the CC BY ND licence can be used but has to be approved by the FWF.

² As an exception until 2024, in the case of scholarly contributions in edited volumes or book chapters that are not part of transformative agreements/journals, the peer-review process must be presented transparently on the website of the publication venue.