If you have questions about open access policies or APC charges in your publication plan, contact us at openutu@utu.fi. Please do it no later than two weeks before the deadline.
The Research Council of Finland requires that all Council funded projects commit to ensuring immediate open access to peer-reviewed articles published about the research results in accordance with Plan S principles and Finland’s national policy for open access to scholarly publications.
The research plan (item 4.3 - Open science) must include a publication plan that has been drafted considering the Council ’s open access requirement. This particularly applies to peer-reviewed articles, but the Research Council of Finland also recommends open access for other types of publications. Instructions regarding these are being prepared by the Council.
Open access can be implemented by:
Peer-reviewed scientific articles should be published under a global use licence that guarantees free immediate access. The licence must also guarantee the free redistribution and reproduction of article contents. The Council requires the use of Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0. There are three other Creative Commons licenses that can be used in some cases: Research Council of Finland - Open Access to scientific publications (> Licence use in publishing).
The easiest way to write an Research Council of Finland applicable publication plan is to check whether a journal or publishing platform is compliant with Plan S with the Journal Checker Tool, a database developed by cOAlition S. For Finnish scientific journals, the Council exceptionally approves journals in which all peer-reviewed articles are published in a manner that is compliant with Plan S, but other published material is not fully open access.
Video about how to use the Journal Checker tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzUzeZVA_U8 (duration 1:20).
NOTE! Peer-reviewed articles produced in Council funded projects may not be published through the so-called hybrid model, where individual articles published in subscription-based journals are made open access on payment.
According to the Council’s funding terms and conditions, the costs of making peer-reviewed articles immediately available are included in the overheads of the research organisations and thus form a part of the costs of the basic facilities they provide. These costs must therefore be taken into account in the calculation of the overheads percentage, and the researcher does not need to take care of them as part of his research costs.
Read more: Research Council of Finland’s policies on open science – open access to scientific publication
The Council requires open access to research methods where possible. Enabling open access to research methods depends not only on the method itself but also on the practices of the discipline in question. The Council has as yet no guidance on the implementation of open access to research methods. However, reliably implemented open access to methods can be taken into account in the review and decision-making as factors that improve the quality of the application.
See instructions in the Research Data guide!
Video: Research Council of Finland call for funding proposals - publication plan: https://youtu.be/M9VeojPDib4 (duration 12 min)
Video: Research Council of Finland call for funding proposals - data management: https://youtu.be/kpXl2IHXL7M (duration 16 min)
