Version 3. Updated: 04/05/2021
Science Foundation Ireland is committed to Ireland's goal of ensuring that all scholarly publications resulting from publicly funded research are openly available. ¹ To this end, Science Foundation Ireland endorses national and international best practice in Open Research, namely the National Framework on the Transition to an Open Research Environment and the EU Recommendations on access to and preservation of scientific information (2018)². SFI is also a partner of cOAlition S and has aligned this policy with the principles espoused by Plan S, an initiative to make full and immediate Open Access (OA) to research publications a reality. This policy applies to all scholarly publications arising in whole or in part from SFI funded research (i.e., where one of the authors has received SFI funding in support of the underlying research) and is effective from 1 st January 2020 . Where the publication is in line with this policy, researchers may publish in the journal destination they feel is most appropriate. Science Foundation Ireland is committed to ensuring that the transition to an Open Research environment does not negatively impact on researchers’ careers. Therefore, as a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration of Research Assessment (DORA) SFI is committed to considering the content, availability and impact of publications rather than the journal or publisher when evaluating research outputs. In addition, SFI will seek to identify and develop initiatives that reward contributions to open research and integrate these into the evaluation process. Open Access to peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings 3 The criteria below apply to all peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings³ arising in whole or in part from SFI funded research. All SFI-funded publications (Version of Record e.g., final published version or Author Accepted Manuscript) must be made openly available. 1. Until 31st December 2020: a.  A maximum embargo period of 6 months from the date of publication will be permitted. b.   Authors are encouraged to make their author accepted manuscripts (AAM) available under an open licence (CC-BY preferably). 2.   From 1st January 2021: a. All publications (as defined above) that are submitted for publication after this date must be immediately available from the date of publication (no embargo permitted). b.  Where OA charges apply, SFI will support a contribution to costs in open access venues or subscription journals with transformative agreements (e.g., agreements to include or offset these costs against subscription costs). SFI funds may not be used to support publication in subscription journals where transformative agreements do not exist (e.g., hybrid journals) and SFI will not support costs associated with non-OA publishing. C. Grant holders must apply a Creative Commons attribution licence (CC-BY) to all author accepted manuscripts (AAM) arising from submissions to peer-reviewed journals, unless an exception (i.e., CC-BY-ND) has been previously agreed by SFI. Licensing terms should not unduly restrict text and data mining and should fulfil the requirements defined by the Berlin Declaration on Open Access. 4 Grant holders must include one of the following statements, whichever is most appropriate, on all submissions of original research to peer-reviewed journals: ‘This publication has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland under Grant number [ ]. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission'. Or ‘This publication has emanated from research supported in part by a grant from Science Foundation Ireland under Grant number [ ]. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission’. 3. If depositing an Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in a compliant repository (i.e., Green Open Access Route), institutional and disciplinary repositories should be used.  Guidance on technical requirements for repositories has been developed by cOAlition S and should be referred to when determining Plan S compliant repositories.5 4. SFI encourages publication in high-quality, peer-reviewed venues. Publication venues and repositories must comply with international standards, particularly any guidelines released by cOAlition S. 6 5. All publications should be accompanied by appropriate metadata in line with national and international standards for harvesting and interoperability. At a minimum this must include full bibliographic data, persistent identifiers (e.g., digital object identified (DOI); ORCID), funder information ("Science Foundation Ireland under Grant number [ ]"), license information, a link to the publication site in the case of deposition in a repository. 6. SFI encourages that research data and software should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable & Reusable (FAIR). All data, original software or materials that underpins SFI- funded publications should be deposited in an open access repository. The associated publication should include information on how to access the related resources. 7.  To facilitate prompt dissemination of research findings SFI encourages researchers to deposit preprints ahead of publication. These should be available under CC-BY licences.  To this end SFI recognises preprints as valuable research outputs (where these are associated with a digital object identifier [DOI]). 8.  SFI will monitor compliance with this policy through scientific and financial reporting, financial audits and utilise tools such as Unpaywall 7 to validate Research Outputs. 9. Publications that do not comply with this policy will not be considered when assessing progress made on an award. 10. In accordance with SFI Grant General Terms & Conditions, failure to comply with this policy may result in sanctions being applied. These may include the withholding of payments on live awards, or exclusion from applying to SFI for funding. Open Access to academic books At present, SFI's Open Access policy only applies to peer-reviewed scholarly articles, and not academic books, research data or other outputs that may arise from SFI funded research. However, where possible, SFI strongly encourages that such outputs are made as open as possible and as closed as necessary after publication.