Clarification on ERC Open Access Rules and Monographs

Under Horizon Europe, beneficiaries are obliged to provide immediate open access (without embargo period) to all peer-reviewed publications related to results from the action (these provisions can be found in pages 107-109 of the Draft Model Grant Agreement). Some parties sought clarification on how this rule applies for monographs, which are quite likely to have embargo periods. This issue is of particular relevance to European Research Council (ERC)  given the size, duration and ground-breaking nature of projects; in many fields of research monographs are the most appropriate form of publication for presenting such ambitious achievements.

The ERC Executive Agency has clarified that, "for long-text publications like monographs a CC BY-NC / ND / NC-ND licence (or equivalent) is acceptable. The ERC Scientific Council recommends the use of the OAPEN Open Books library (https://oapen.org) as repository for monographs and other books as well as book chapters." For other types of publications, such as articles, the expectation is for open access "via a trusted repository, under a CC BY (or equivalent) licence (either to the ‘author accepted manuscript’ or the published ‘version of record’)".

Costs associated with publications will not be eligible for funding from the project, "if the venue is not fully open access (i.e. a fully open access journal or book, or an open access publishing platform like, e.g., Open Research Europe)".