Open Access

The movement

Open Access is a movement that seeks to grant free and open online access to scientific results.

According to the Open Access model, end users are provided with free access to publications and data, giving maximum visibility and use of documents, based on the idea that the results of publicly funded research must be available to everyone.

This is opposed to the traditional subscription model where readers have access to publications by paying a subscription.

There are different ways of publishing in open access:

• Green route (self-archiving; free of charge)
  A version of the manuscript is archived by the author in an online repository before, alongside, or after its publication; the repository software usually allows authors to delay access to the article for an embargo period

• Gold route
  > Full Open Access: publication is provided immediately in open access by the publisher without restriction. The publication costs, known as ‘article processing charges’ (APCs), are covered by authors or by their institutions.
  
  > Hybrid: according to this publishing model, for subscription-based journals, some articles are made openly available against the payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC), while other articles remain closed access.
  
  

Hybrid OA fees are not eligible under Horizon Europe.

To verify the OA policy of a specific journal, please refer to Sherpa Romeo, an online database which contains open access policies from around the world and provides summaries of publisher copyright and open access archiving policies on a journal-by-journal basis.

Open access to research data

This is the practice of making results public by providing free of charge access to digital research data (such as statistics, results of experiments, survey results, etc.) and giving the possibility to re-use it.

Under H2020 projects were automatically part of the Open Research Data Pilot.

In Horizon Europe Open Access to research data is compulsory.

Open Access in Bocconi

Bocconi University promotes the principle of Open Access as defined by the Berlin
Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities signed in October 2003, as a signatory of the Messina Declaration of 2004.

Transformative contracts

From 2020 Bocconi has been pursuing transformative agreements with a range of publishers.

More information can be found in the library section of the website.