The Commission strategy is to develop and implement open access to research results from projects funded by the EU Research Framework Programmes, including the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).
Open access requirements are based on a balanced support to both 'green' open access (immediate or delayed open access that is provided through self-archiving) and 'gold' open access (immediate open access that is provided by a publisher).
How do I comply?
FP7 grant recipients in seven areas (energy, environment, health, information and communication technologies [only cognitive systems, interaction, and robotics], research infrastructures [only e-infrastructures], science in society, and socioeconomic sciences and humanities) are expected to make research outputs open access via publishing open access in a journal or publishing platform or self-archiving a version of the work (green open access).
Publishing open access in a journal or publishing platform (gold open access)
Check the publishing open access information page to find out if you are eligible to publish OA in a journal or publishing platform (gold OA), and to make an application for funding.
If the chosen journal is not part of an institutional publisher agreement, in the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), 'gold' open access fees (i.e. 'open access publishing' and 'author pays' fees) are eligible for reimbursement.
- Details can be found in the FP7 model Grant Agreement, article II.16.4 'other activities'.
- Outputs must be published with a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY). More information on Creative Commons licences.
On publication, you are also encouraged by the University to deposit a copy of the final PDF of your 'gold' OA publication into University of Birmingham Research Archive (UBIRA), using PURE.
Self-archiving (green open access)
EC FP7 permits self-archiving (green open access) with a six-month embargo for STEM subjects (health, energy, environment, information and communication technologies, research infrastructures), and 12 months for SSH (science in society, socioeconomic sciences and humanities) after publication.
Use Sherpa Romeo to check your publishers’ policy is compatible with your funders self-archiving policy.
To self-archive, deposit the Accepted Author Manuscript (AAM) of your publication using Pure immediately on acceptance. Ensure your publication is linked to the grant using the ‘Projects’ link in PURE.
- The accepted version is also known as the authors final manuscript, or post print.
- It is the version after peer review and before final publisher formatting or copy-editing.
If your chosen publisher has an embargo longer than six months, it will have to be agreed by your funder as an exception.
More information