Page updated on: 05.10.2025
What is Open Access?
Open Access (OA) means free access to scientific information over the internet.
"Open access (OA) literature is:
- digital
- online
- free of charge
- and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions"
(Suber 2012, 4).
Researchers who publish articles or books in OA or upload their publications to a specialized repository make research accessible worldwide, granting access to the most up-to-date scientific information also to people working outside research institutions or living in underdeveloped countries, where access to traditional pay-per-view content by big publishers is simply too expensive. OA is supported on a global scale by many scientific organizations, libraries, universities and research institutions (see for example the list of signatories of the Berlin Declaration on OA to which USI has adhered in 2016 as 552nd istitution).
Why Open Access?
For several decades, the scientific community has been facing more and more disproportionate cost increases from many scholarly journals. The reasons for this so-called “serial crisis” are complex, but an essential factor is the quasi-monopoly of several publishers. Researchers, working in the environment of financially secure institutes, often do not face the problem directly. However the visibility, re-use and impact of their scientific research suffer from the limitation of access by price-barriers. Through this lens, it is clear that open access to research results should be enforced.
The results of research financed by public funds should be published electronically so that they are freely and immediately available without charge and can thus be reused by third parties, since they are considered as a public good. Several studies have shown that OA helps boost the visibility of research among researchers, the media and the general public. It thus promotes the transfer of knowledge, the rationalisation of resources and the efficiency of research, while accelerating scientific progress. Increasingly, OA is regarded as a new standard of excellence for scientific research, offering new opportunities for funding, partnerships and jobs, most appropriately so in countries with a particularly knowledge-based economy like Switzerland.
In Switzerland, several institutions connected to scientific research and its publication have developed OA policies:
- The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) requires that, in principle, all publications relative to research it funded should be published in OA.
- The Swiss Academy of humanities and social sciences (SAGW) requires from all publishers receiving its financial support that they develop an OA policy before 2020.
- Since 2017, swissuniversities has adopted the Swiss National Open Access Strategy, revised in 2024, aiming at making all publicly funded scholarly publications freely available.
To achieve this vision, the strategy focuses on developing and coordinating infrastructure and services, establishing a supportive legal framework, negotiating with publishers and fostering an open access culture within research communities.
USI aligns with the national strategies with the same principles and objectives, requiring its research community to comply with the national OA requirements.
Open Access Policy Guidelines of Università della Svizzera italiana
Guidelines accepted by the Rectorate 14.09.20
How to publish Open Access?
Researchers who choose to publish OA may follow several paths. Two of them are the most commonly followed, and the least cumbersome:
The Green Road
The "Green Road" corresponds to self-archiving a version of one's publication in the Istitutional Repository of the university or in disciplinary or trans-disciplinary repositories. SUSI is the Istitutional Repository for researchers at USI.
You can deposit your publications in SUSI through the RICERCO platform. For more information on the archival procedure, you can consult our guidelines.
Versions that can be shared
- Final version: if the publication is in Open Access (Gold, hybrid, or diamond), you can deposit the final version (also called version of record, published version);
-
Accepted Manuscript: if the publisher does not allow Open Access sharing, you must deposit the version accepted for publication (so-called Author's Accepted Manuscript), i.e. the version of the manuscript accepted for publication after the peer-review process. This version does not include the final layout, logos and typesetting.
Please note: the publisher may impose an embargo period and a specific license. You can check the editorial conditions for dissemination on the publishing agreement, on the Open Policy Finder website, or by contacting us.
You can check the editorial conditions for the dissemination of your manuscript in the publishing agreement, in the Open Policy Finder website, or by contacting us.
The Gold road
The Gold road provides immediate open access to publications (articles and books). Articles or books are directly published online, usually in an Open Access journal or an Open Access ebook platform.
The DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals platform lists and informs about OA journals of high quality and trustworthiness.
The project OAPEN displays ebooks in OA published by many academic publishers, in Switzerland as well as worldwide.
In the case of Gold Open Access publications, the author usually pays a fee (so called article-processing charges, APCs). Please see further below to learn more about how to support your publication costs.
Papago your Open Access personal assistant
 |
Do you need help with rights, obligations and financing opportunities in the context of OA? Papago offers individualized advice.
|
Financial support for Open Access
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and USI can provide financial support for publication expenses related to the Gold road to OA.
USI Gold Open Access Publication Fund
The USI Fund covers the publication costs fulfilling the following conditions:
- APC charges in fully Gold OA, peer-reviewed journals;
- the journal must be included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), or meet their quality criteria;
- article must not be related to a third-party funded project;
- if third party funding is available (e.g. Horizon Europe), the USI Fund cannot be used; if the publication is an output of a SNSF-funded project, funding from the USI Fund is excluded;
- the USI affiliation must be clearly stated in the publication.
The following costs are excluded:
- APC costs in Hybrid journals or predatory journald;
- Optional charges not directly related to the OA publication, such as color or page charges, translations, printing costs, repository fees, …,
Who is eligible for funding:
- The corresponding author must be a USI researcher and have her/his main contract with USI;
- USI professors, PhD students, scientific collaborators (MER, post-docs);
- Excluded: lecturers (docenti), collaborators of the affiliated institutes; Biomed Faculty: adjunct professors, private lecturers (PD), clinical practice teachers, lecturers.
Detailed information is available here: https://www.desk.usi.ch/en/node/3521.
SNSF OA publications funding
Articles:
- The article must be published in a fully OA journal of a scientifically recognised standard (peer-review).
- The article should be based on the results of an SNSF-funded project (ongoing OR ended);
- publications in hybrid journals are not funded;
- funding requests must be submitted directly via the Chronoshub platform
Books:
- BPCs of peer-reviewed Open Access books;
- this includes monographs, anthologies, and doctoral theses (if processed by a publisher with the aim of publishing a book);
- the Open Access publication must be before the print version, if planned;
- SNSF funding does not cover the costs of the print edition;
- the funding application must be submitted via the mySNF portal;
Book Chapters:
- BCPCs in peer-reviewed Open Access books;
- the chapter must be the result of an ongoing or completed FNS project;
- the funding application must be submitted via the mySNF portal.
Additional information and conditions are available on the dedicated SNSF OA page.
Read & Publish Agreements
The Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries (CSAL), acting on behalf of swissuniversities, has negotiated several "read and publish" agreements with various academic publishers, which guarantee reading access to each publisher’s portfolio. In addition, researchers at participating universities can publish their work in Open Access at no additional cost or with a discount on the cost of Article Processing Charges (APCs).
How to benefit from them:
- the corresponding author of the article must be a USI researcher (exceptions apply);
- the journal must be included in the agreement list;
- the article's acceptance date must match the agreement's duration period;
- the article quota must not be exhausted, where applicable;
Tips:
- use your institutional email address (@usi) to facilitate the matching process already at submission;
- clearly indicate your USI affiliation upon submission;
- submit your article within the USI network (matching process through the IP address).
USI researchers can benefit from the following discount rates:
| Publisher | Agreement description | Journals |
|---|---|---|
| ACM - Association for Computing Machinery |
Validity: 2026 - 2028 100% free APCs for all peer-reviewed articles in all ACM publications Excluded article types: conference proceedings co-published with IEEE or Sage, listed here. |
complete list |
| ACS - American Chemical Society |
Validity: 2026 100% free APCs for Gold OA and Hybrid OA articles in all Web Edition. National yearly quota: 235 accepted articles Excluded article types: additions, corrections or editorials |
complete list |
| BMJ |
Validity: 2026 100% free APCs for 'Original Research' Hybrid OA articles in the BMJ Standard Collection portfolio, and 15% discount on APCs of articles in BMJ Gold Journals. National yearly quota: 13 accepted articles |
complete list |
| Cell Press |
→ see Elsevier |
|
| Dove Press |
→ see Taylor&Francis |
|
| Elsevier |
Validity: 2024-2026 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles by the publishers Elsevier, Cell Press, and Lancet Journals |
complete list |
| F1000 Research platform |
→ see Taylor&Francis |
|
|
Frontiers Gold OA publisher |
Validity: 2026 100% free APCs for all peer-review articles in the entire Frontiers portfolio, until exhaustion of the amount prepayed by USI. Additional conditions: only USI members entitled to Gold Open Access reimbursement are allowed to publish within this agreement (» see inclusion criteria) |
all |
| John Benjamins |
Validity: 2026 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles. |
all journals |
| Karger Journals |
Validity: 2026-2028 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles. Included article types: case reports, research, review, systematic review, meta-analyses and methods articles |
complete list |
| Lancet Journals |
→ see Elsevier |
|
| MDPI |
Validity: 2026-2027 20% discount on APCs, 10% discount on BPCs. Additional conditions: discounted APCs in Gold journals: only USI members eligible to the USI Gold OA Fund can request the full coverage of the APC invoice (» see inclusion criteria) |
complete list |
| Nature | → see Springer Nature | |
| Oxford University Press |
Validity: 2025-2027. Free APCs for Hybrid OA articles. In addition, 10% discount on APCs in Gold OA journals Additional conditions: discounted APCs in Gold journals: only USI members eligible to the USI Gold OA Fund can request the coverage of the APC invoice (» see inclusion criteria) |
complete list |
|
PLOS Gold OA publisher |
Validity: 2025-2026 100% free APCs in seven Gold OA journals |
- PLOS ONE - PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases - PLOS Genetics - PLOS Computational Biology - PLOS Pathogens - PLOS Digital Health - PLOS Complex Systems - PLOS Aging and Health - PLOS Ecosystems |
| SAGE |
The negotiations at the national level between swissuniversities and Sage have not yet resulted in a satisfying agreement for the involved institutions, which led to a situation without a contract from January 2026. More information on the impact on publications available here. |
No APC coverage currently available. |
| Springer Nature |
Validity: 2026-2029 Full coverage of publication costs in Gold and Hybrid Springer Nature portfolios. Journals included: Eligible article types:
Article quota:
|
See relevant lists in the central box |
| Taylor&Francis |
Validity: 2024-2027 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles, including Dove Press (Gold OA) and F1000 Research platform (Gold OA). |
complete list |
| Wiley |
Validity: 2025-2027 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles. Included article types: primary research and review articles National yearly quota: hybrid articles: 2'000 / gold articles: 400 |
Who can help me?
The Biblioteche dell’Università della Svizzera italiana can assist and guide researchers in the process of OA publishing.
Support and information:
[email protected]
Phone: +41 58 666 4501
OA on the sOfA : relaxed Open Access
Are you interested in learning more about Open Access publishing?
The OA Service of the USI Libraries is happy to invite you to a new series of informal workshops to learn more about OA challenges and opportunities.
During the Autumn semester, each week we will address a specific OA-related topic; every session will consist of a short presentation in English, followed by plenty of time for your questions. Coffee and snacks will be provided!
Where:
sessions will be held in English at Biblioagorà, Est Campus (sector A, 1st floor), from 10:30 to 11:30.
Target audience:
USI researchers at all levels, interested in learning more about Open Access publishing.
Contact:
[email protected]
Programme autumn semester 2025
Registrations close two days before each event.
|
|
|
|
Read & Publish agreements at USI |
Registration |
|
|
|
|
Publication funding for Gold OA |
Registration |
|
|
|
|
Self-archiving and the Green OA Road |
Registration |
|
|
|
|
An international week dedicated to Open Access! The event at USI will take place on Tuesday 21 October, from 12 to 14 at BiblioAgorà. More information available here. |
|
|
|
|
|
RICERCO tutorial |
Registration |
|
|
|
|
OA Challenges |
Registration |
|
|
|
|
Focus on Humanities |
Registration |
|
|
|
|
Creative Commons Licenses and copyright – with the USI CCdigitallaw competence center |
Registration |
|
|
|
|
Open Research Data – con Igor Sarman, USI ORD Manager |
Registration |
|
|
|
|
OA Myths |
Registration |
International Open Access Week: Who Owns Our Knowledge?
The USI Libraries are happy to announce their first participation in the International Open Access Week 2025. The event is celebrated by individuals, institutions, and organizations around the world, to discuss, disseminate and learn about the potential benefits of Open Access.
This year’s Open Access Week centers on the theme “Who Owns Our Knowledge?” and invites communities to reflect on how they can reassert control over the knowledge they produce.
To celebrate this OA Week, the USI Libraries are organizing an event which will foster the discussion around this topic with our two guest speakers, Professor Patrick Gagliardini and Professor Katharina Lobinger.
The event will be structured in two parts:
- First, together with Professor Patrick Gagliardini, USI Pro-Rector for Research, we will officially launch RICERCO, USI’s new publication management portal. Is an institutional repository a strong tool to enhance the visibility and the promotion of the results of its researchers?
- Then, we will present a Diamond Open Access initiative, through the example of the Studies in Communication Sciences (SComS) journal, with the participation of Professor Katharina Lobinger, editorial board member of SComS. How can community-led approaches, such as Diamond OA, help reasserting this year’s theme and “regaining” ownership of their community journals?
Join us for a lively discussion on different publishing and sharing models, on whether they can represent a solid alternative that have the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry is conducted, shared and reused by its community.
When: Tuesday, 21 October, 12.00 – 14.00
Where: BiblioAgorà, 1st Floor, Sector A, East Campus
The event will be held in presence, in English.
Registration: for organizational reasons, please register via the following link.
Provisional programme
- 12.00 - 12.10 – Welcome - OA Week welcome, what it is, activities @ USI, theme 2025 – USI Libraries
- 12.10 - 12.25 – Introduction to RICERCO, USI’s new publication management platform – Patrick Gagliardini, USI Pro-Rector for Research
- 12.25 - 12.50 – RICERCO launch – USI Libraries
- 12.50 - 13.30 – Diamond OA: community-led editorial endeavour – the SComS example – Katharina Lobinger, editorial board member of SComS, USI Associate Professor
- 13.30 - 13.35 – Conclusion
The presentation will be followed by a moment of networking around a light lunch and coffee.
Useful links
- Open Access Net: comprehensive information about OA
- DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals: OA journals platform
- DOAB - Directory of Open Access Books: OA books platform
- Open policy finder: information about publishres' or journals' OA policies
- Think Check Submit: checklist to verify a publisher's or journal's legitimacy and to recognize predatory ones
- Journal Checker Tool: a tool to verify if a combination of funder, institution and journal offers any publishing route compliant with the Open Access policy of the given funder
Sources
- Suber, Peter. Open Access. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2012. Pdf download - Open Access
- IST Austria. Why publish Open Access?. https://ist.ac.at/.... Viewed May 3, 2018.
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Open Access to Publications. http://www.snf.ch/...Viewed May 3, 2018.
- Universitätsbibliothek, Universität Bern. Open Access. http://www.unibe.ch/.... Viewed May 3, 2018.
- Budapest Open Access Initiative. Read the Budapest Open Access Initiative. http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/.... Viewed May 3, 2018.
News and updates
26 June 2025 --- Entry into force of the Read&Publish agreement with Wiley
After a no-deal phase at the beginning of 2025, the new publishing agreement with the scientific publisher Wiley finally comes into force at USI and at the other Swiss universities for the period 2025-2027. The new agreement, signed by swissuniversities with Wiley on the 23rd of June 2025, now includes Wiley's Gold OA journals, allowing researchers from Swiss higher education institutions to publish in Open Access across Wiley's entire portfolio in the future.
8 April 2025 --- Read & Publish: no-deal with publisher Wiley for 2025
No agreement has been reached between swissuniversities, representing the participating institutions, and the scientific publisher Wiley. The negotiations have been discontinued in March 2025, as they have not resulted in a mutually acceptable agreement.
17 February 2025 --- Renewal of the Read&Publish agreements with BMJ, Frontiers, MDPI, OUP and PLOS
The Read&Publish agreements with the scientific publishers BMJ, Frontiers, MDPI, Oxford University Press (OUP) and PLOS have been renewed. They join the ongoing ones with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), American Chemical Society (ACS), Elsevier (including Cell Press and Lancet Journals), John Benjamins, Karger, Nature, SAGE, Springer and Taylor&Francis (including Dove Press and F1000).
09.05.2022 --- Failed negotiations for Read&Publish agreement with Oxford University Press
The Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries and Oxford University Press (OUP) have not been able to agree on the terms for a transformative Read & Publish agreement as of 2022. After more than three years of negotiations, OUP was not willing to move towards the requirements of swissuniversities. OUP's latest asking price still exceeds available library funds by far. As a consequence, the Consortium has decided to suspend negotiations with OUP until further notice.
Without an existing agreement, articles published behind a paywall from January 2022 onwards will not be available while USI and most Swiss universities are guaranteed continuing access rights for articles up to the end of 2021.
For these so-called "no-deal" situations, the libraries recommend some viable alternatives to retrieve, at no extra cost, articles that are not available through the libraries' institutional subscriptions: factsheet ‘How to get the article’.
03.05.2021 --- USI signs “read & publish" agreements with Wiley and SAGE
USI has entered two new "read & publish" agreements with scientific publishers Wiley and SAGE, adding to those reached previously with Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis and Karger. These agreements were negotiated by swissuniversities and will be implemented by the USI Libraries. They combine full access to the publishers' journals (read) with the possibility to publish free of charge in OA (publish) while minimising cost increases. These are important additions to the Swiss National OA Strategy.
Wiley
USI researchers can now publish Open Access (OA) articles free of charge in more than 1,450 journals of the publisher Wiley, provided that they are corresponding authors of the article and under contract with USI. The agreement, which extends through December 31, 2024, applies to all articles (primary research and review articles) accepted after April 30, 2021. The affiliation with USI or another Swiss academic research institution participating in the agreement must be indicated during the procedure for managing accepted articles. The agreement applies to all Wiley "hybrid" journals, i.e., not published open access (full list).
SAGE
A similar "read & publish" agreement was reached also with the publisher SAGE. Corresponding authors affiliated with USI can publish free Open Access (OA) articles in over 900 "hybrid" journals (full list), or get a 20% discount on APCs of Gold Open Access journals. In addition, reading access to all SAGE journals in the Communication collection (FTC) is guaranteed.
We would like to take this opportunity to remind you that USI, in addition to concluding agreements with individual publishers, finances the publication of Gold OA articles by its researchers, if they are not already funded within a project of the SNSF.
The USI Libraries are available to provide further information on the two "read & publish" agreements, as well as on OA publishing in general. Please contact us by email: [email protected].
29.11.2020 --- Renewal of the "read & publish" agreement with Karger publishers
In 2021, USI researchers will be able to keep on publishing free Open Access (OA) articles in all Karger's journals, provided that they are corresponding authors of the article and under contract with USI. During the article submission process, in the "Open Access Agreements" section, USI shall be referred to as the institution of reference.
Karger publishes over 100 peer-reviewed journals, of which an increasing number in Open Access. The Basel publisher is active with books and magazines mainly in the field of biomedical sciences.
This agreement, negotiated by the Consortium of Swiss University Libraries and already in force in 2020, was the first to be implemented by USI Libraries and was then followed by further agreements with the publishers Elsevier and Springer Nature.
We want to take this opportunity to recall that USI, in addition to negotiating agreements with individual publishers, also funds the publication of Gold OA articles by its researchers, when these articles are not already funded within an SNSF project.
USI Libraries are available for further information on "read & publish" agreements, as well as on OA publication in general. For the moment, please contact us by email: [email protected].