The ERC Scientific Council has published updated guidelines on Open Access for researchers with ERC funded projects. Under the new guidelines researchers are now expected to publish the main outputs of their grants – defined in the guidelines as ‘new knowledge, ideas and understanding’ – in peer-reviewed articles and monographs:
The mission of the European Research Council (ERC) is to support excellent fundamental research in sciences and the humanities. The main outputs of this research are new knowledge, ideas and understanding, which the ERC expects its researchers to publish in peer-reviewed articles and monographs.
The ERC considers that providing free online access to these materials is the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of the research it funds can be accessed, read and used as the basis for further research.
The ERC therefore supports the principle of open access to the published outputs of research as a fundamental part of its mission.
Accordingly, the European Research Council:
- requires electronic copies of any research papers and monographs that are supported in whole, or in part, by ERC funding to be made publicly available as soon as possible, and no later than six months after the official publication date of the original article.
- strongly encourages ERC funded researchers to make their publications available in open access using discipline-specific repositories. A list of recommended repositories is provided in Appendix 1. If there is no appropriate discipline specific repository, researchers should make their publications available in institutional repositories or on their own webpage.
- considers it essential that primary data, as well as data-related products such as computer codes, is deposited in the relevant databases as soon as possible, preferably immediately after publication and in any case not later than six months after the date of publication.
- encourages Host Institutions to cover open access fees of any research papers and monographs that are supported in whole, or in part, by ERC funding which arise in the period up to 24 months after the end of a grant.
- reminds ERC funded researchers that open access fees are eligible costs that can be charged against ERC grants.
Those guidelines will be reviewed periodically.