Research Guides: Open Science and Citizen Science: ↪ Open Science Policies

Local, Regional and Global - Open Science Policies Initiatives

Sherpa Romeo - Open Access Policies

Sherpa Romeo is an online resource that aggregates and presents publisher and journal open access policies from around the world. Every registered publisher or journal held in Romeo is carefully reviewed and analyzed by our specialist team who provide summaries of self-archiving permissions and conditions of rights given to authors on a journal-by-journal basis where possible.

The policy information provided through this service primarily aims to serve the academic research community. Since the service launched over 15 years ago, publisher policies and the open-access sector have changed a lot. Open access policy can be complex and varies according to geographical location, the institution, and the various routes to open access — all of which affect how and where you can publish your research.

Sherpa Juliet

Sherpa Juliet enables researchers and librarians to see funders' conditions for open access publication.

Sherpa Juliet is a searchable database and single focal point of up-to-date information concerning research funders' policies and their requirements on open access, publication and data archiving.

Organizational Mandates - OA, Open Data and OER Policies

Open Data Policies

[United Kingdom] AHRC Research Funding Guide PDF
This guidance includes funding types; eligibility; what to include in your application; costs; how we assess your application; peer review; getting told about the application outcome; common application errors.
The guidance contains standard rules and policies. Some funding opportunities have different criteria. Specific rules noted for a particular funding opportunity will supersede any rules or policies in subsequent sections.
You must ensure you have obtained the permission of any other person named on the proposal form (for example any co-Investigators or project partners) for the provision of their personal information to UKRI and the processing of their data by UKRI for the purpose of assessing the application and management of any funding awarded.
[United Kingdom] University of Reading - Writing a Data Management Plan for a Grant Application
If a data management plan (DMP) is required as part of a grant application, this will be reviewed by the Research Data Manager prior to submission of the final application. You must ensure that a draft of your DMP is made available to the Research Data Manager for review and comment as early as possible and no later than 5 working days before the application submission date. Draft plans can be sent directly to the Research Data Manager or via the Research Development Manager who is supporting your application.
The guide Writing a Data Management Plan for a Grant Application (pdf) focuses on general principles and provides information about University policies and services. Guidance on writing DMPs for selected funders is provided below.

Open Access Policies

[United Kingdom] UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) - Open Access Policy
This policy applies to publications which need to acknowledge funding from UKRI or any of its councils. This includes funding from the research councils; Research England Innovate UK.
It aims to ensure that findings from research funded by the public through UKRI can be freely accessed, used and built on.
The policy applies to peer-reviewed research articles submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022; monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024.
The policy document includes the full policy scope, requirements and key definitions.
For guidance on peer-reviewed research articles submitted before 1 April 2022, see making your research publications open access.
For an explanation of changes to UKRI’s policy on open access and information on its implementation, see shaping our open access policy.
European Commission - Open Access to Scientific Publications / Horizon 2020
EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, v. 5.2 (26 June 2019)
The AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement is a user guide that aims to explain to applicants and beneficiaries the General Model Grant Agreement (General MGA) and the different specific Model Grant Agreements (‘Specific MGAs’) for the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for 2014-2020 (H2020). The purpose of this document is to help users understand and interpret the GAs, by avoiding technical vocabulary, legal references and jargon, and seeking to help readers find answers to any practical questions they may have about particular parts of the GAs. In the same spirit, the document’s structure mirrors that of the GAs. It explains each GA Article and includes examples where appropriate. Since the Specific MGAs have a similar set-up and provisions as the General MGA (i.e. they are all derived from the General MGA), the annotations will focus mainly on the General MGA (and the annotations of the other MGAs will be limited to major differences from that MGA). The key provisions on the amount, cost forms and eligibility conditions of your grant are however explained for all MGAs (see Articles 4-6 of each MGA). The annotations are — with some exceptions — done on the multi-beneficiary versions. The multi- and mono-beneficiary versions are largely identical.
EU ready to back immediate open access without author fees By Rachel Magee Share
The EU is ready to agree that immediate open access to papers reporting publicly funded research should become the norm, without authors having to pay fees, and that the bloc should support non-profit scholarly publishing models.
In a move that could send shockwaves through commercial scholarly publishing, the positions are due to be adopted by the Council of the EU member state governments later this month.
Various draft positions on scholarly publishing have been published by the January-June Swedish presidency of the Council in recent months, but with few clues as to how the potentially industry-shaking proposals were being received by fellow member state governments.
Now, however, the latest version published on May 4, which retains the most radical aspects of the earlier drafts, has been agreed “at technical level”, ready for research ministers to give it their assent at a meeting on 23 May

Open Data Policies

European Commission - Open Access to Research Data / Horizon 2020
EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, v. 5.2 (26 June 2019)
The AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement is a user guide that aims to explain to applicants and beneficiaries the General Model Grant Agreement (General MGA) and the different specific Model Grant Agreements (‘Specific MGAs’) for the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for 2014-2020 (H2020). The purpose of this document is to help users understand and interpret the GAs, by avoiding technical vocabulary, legal references and jargon, and seeking to help readers find answers to any practical questions they may have about particular parts of the GAs. In the same spirit, the document’s structure mirrors that of the GAs. It explains each GA Article and includes examples where appropriate. Since the Specific MGAs have a similar set-up and provisions as the General MGA (i.e. they are all derived from the General MGA), the annotations will focus mainly on the General MGA (and the annotations of the other MGAs will be limited to major differences from that MGA). The key provisions on the amount, cost forms and eligibility conditions of your grant are however explained for all MGAs (see Articles 4-6 of each MGA). The annotations are — with some exceptions — done on the multi-beneficiary versions. The multi- and mono-beneficiary versions are largely identical.
European Data Strategy / European Commission
The European data strategy aims to make the EU a leader in a data-driven society.Creating a single market for data will allow it to flow freely within the EU and across sectors for the benefit of businesses, researchers and public administrations.
People, businesses and organisations should be empowered to make better decisions based on insights from non-personal data, which should be available to all.
[United Kingdom] UKRI- NERC - Data Policy
NERC has a well-established Data Policy that sets the ground rules that all those funded by NERC must follow in managing the data that they collect. The Data Policy details our commitment to support the long-term management of environmental data and also outlines the roles and responsibilities of all those involved in collecting and managing environmental data. Central to the policy is that NERC-funded scientists must make their data openly available within two years of collection and deposit it in a NERC data centre for long term preservation. The aim is that all NERC-funded data are managed and made available for the long-term for anybody to use without any restrictions.

Open Access Policies

[USA] National Institutes of Health (NIH) - Public Access Policy
To advance science and improve human health, NIH makes the peer-reviewed articles it funds publicly available on PubMed Central. The NIH public access policy requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to PubMed Central immediately upon acceptance for publication.
The Policy applies to any manuscript that is peer-reviewed; and, is accepted for publication in a journal on or after April 7, 2008; and, arises from: any direct funding from an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 or beyond, or; any direct funding from an NIH contract signed on or after April 7, 2008, or; any direct funding from the NIH Intramural Program, or; an NIH employee.
World Bank Open Access Policy for Formal Publications
Administrative manual statement ; AMS 14.40 Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group.
The World Bank supports the free online communication and exchange of knowledge as the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of research, economic and sector work, and development practice are made widely available, read, and built upon. It is therefore committed to open access, which, for authors, enables the widest possible dissemination of their findings and, for readers, increases their ability to discover pertinent information.
The International Labour Organization goes Open Access
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has implemented an Open Access policy that will make the use of all its knowledge products easier.
The launch of the ILO Open Access policy supports the fundamental ethic that results of publicly funded research or work should be made available to the public to use, with the goal of increasing accessibility, visibility and impact.
As of 3 May 2023, all new ILO knowledge products will be freely available for use or reuse without needing to request permission – as long as ILO is cited as the source of material.
The policy covers all materials published or made available by ILO ranging from reports and publications to videos and datasets.

Open Education Resources Policies

Guidelines on the development of open educational resources policies by UNESCO
ISBN: 9789231003417
Publication Date: 2019
The guidelines describe the whole process for designing and implementing OER policy in seven chapters, each representing a clear phase in the whole process. The chapters introduce the purpose of the phase and provide background information and references with practical examples for illustration. At the end of each chapter, specific tasks are set for the policy-maker, which will help with formulating of the final OER policy. The guidelines start with an introduction to the potential of OER and then ask the policy-maker to determine the vision of the OER policy she or he has in mind. This policy needs a framework, which determines on what level of the education system the policy will be set (scale) and which sector of the education system the policy will cover (focus). This sets out the first part of the theory of change – i.e., it determines what change is envisaged through the policy.
Open educational resources competency framework OER by UNESCO
Publication Date: 2016
Open educational resources (OER) have extraordinary transformative potential. They are a powerful asset to attaining the fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG): “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. While awareness about OER is progressing day after day, it is essential to make available all the tools conducive to deep and lasting change in practices. This competency framework shows the commitment of the International Organisation of La Francophonie (IOF), in partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) the Open Education Consortium and the Virtual University of Tunis, to build together on the foundations of shared humanist values and promote the richness of the world’s cultural and linguistic diversity to accompany and support the movement of OER.

Open Science and Citizen Science

Local, Regional and Global - Open Science Policies Initiatives

Sherpa Romeo - Open Access Policies

Sherpa Juliet

Organizational Mandates - OA, Open Data and OER Policies

Open Data Policies

Open Access Policies

Open Data Policies

Open Access Policies

Open Education Resources Policies