ERC revises its Open Access Guidelines | News & Events

"The ERC Scientific Council has revised its Open Access Guidelines at the end of 2014 and strongly promotes good research data management. The ERC reconfirms its support for Open Access and considers  providing free online access to materials resulting from ERC funded research 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 requests that an electronic copy of any research article, monograph or other research publication that is supported in whole, or in part, by ERC funding be deposited in a suitable repository immediately upon publication, and make it Open Access as soon as possible (embargoes up to 6 (STEM) or 12 (SSH) are allowed). The ERC considers that it would be premature at this time to ask ERC funded researchers to make a binding commitment to open research data right at the start of the project. Nevertheless the ERC encourages researchers to make use of suitable subject repositories, or, if unavailable, a suitable institutional repository or if that is not available, to deposit in Zenodo. The ERC further encourages all ERC funded researchers to seek to establish and practice good research data management in accordance with the current best practices in their respective fields and to share their data with other researchers in a responsible way,  whenever they are not bound by copyright restrictions, confidentiality requirements, or contractual clauses. The Open Access Guidelines are complementary to Special Clause 39 of the FP7 ERC Model Grant Agreement respectively to the Horizon 2020 ERC Model Grant Agreement, which detail the legal obligations of the beneficiary with regard to open access, where applicable. The document has now been published on the ERC Portal."