Open Access is a publishing model which allows readers to access scientific publications online free of charge. Open Access removes price and permission barriers: there are no subscription fees, and unrestricted use of all published material is made possible thanks to flexible intellectual property laws for authors.

By removing access barriers typical of traditional publishing models, Open Access accelerates research and learning and enables the sharing of knowledge on a global level. Knowledge is a heritage that should be freely accessible to everyone.

Benefits of Open Access

The scientific community and the whole of society benefits from Open Access.

Comprehensive, fast and efficient research cycles allow scholars to make progress in their careers more effectively thanks to immediate access to new research materials, findings and the latest scientific developments.

At the same time, by providing an information-sharing framework where readers can refer to, distribute or display the work of others, Open Access contributes to the wider dissemination, increased usage and impact of researchers' work.

Open Access brings increased visibility to institutions that fund and supervise research. Universities, institutes, foundations, national funds for scientific research and government agencies all benefit from the increased visibility and higher citation rates of funded projects. Moreover, unrestricted use of and immediate access to free research literature provides a great resource for teaching, conference presentations and lectures, and thus both teaching staff and students benefit highly from it.

Finally, since they are able to connect readers to relevant content and expand their catalogs at no cost, libraries are likely to profit from the favorable opportunities offered by Open Access publishing.

Read about Open Access, visibility and impact here.

The Publishing Model

The need for accessible scientific research and the advances of the digital age have shaped an alternative publishing model connecting classical publishing with the potential of new technologies. It must be understood that even though production costs are lower for digital publishing compared to traditional publishing, high-quality scientific publications are nevertheless not free to produce. To ensure that the published material is freely accessible online to all Internet users immediately upon publication, traditional subscription revenues are replaced by Article Processing Charges.

There is still a sense that publishing under the Open Access model presents a financial burden for the author, whereas subscription-based publishing doesn’t. This is mostly due to the fact that authors do not participate in the publishing costs of subscription-based publications directly, so they are not familiar with the real cost of subscriptions to their institutions. Articles Processing Charges are a contribution from authors and their funding bodies to enable free access to the published material for all and thereby to support the growth of the scientific community, and as such they are a fundamental element of Open Access publishing. We invite you to read more on the Open Access publishing model from The Right to Research Coalition.

A significant number of funding institutions have acknowledged the benefits of Open Access. Grants provided by many Research Funding Agencies include funds to cover the costs of researchers publishing their findings under the Open Access label.

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