Grantees of the SNSF are advised to discuss the details of the OA rules of the SNSF before agreeing to work with a publisher. The SNSF monitors compliance with its OA regulations and publishes the OA status of all publications resulting from its funding in the SNSF projects database (project level). The SNSF may take further measures if its OA rules are not respected.
If a copyright convention has been concluded with a publisher, its terms should be complied with. However, the SNSF expects these publications to be self-archived in an institutional or disciplinary repository – in the case of articles immediately on publication – and after an embargo period not exceeding twelve months for books and book chapters. Longer embargo periods are not in line with the OA rules. All published articles have to meet the OA requirements; exceptions are only made in the case of books that face disproportionately high costs for image rights. If there are no agreements on copyright, scientific works can be archived in a repository three months after publication (Article 382, paragraph 3 Code of Obligations). An overview of the standard practices of publishers is available on the Sherpa/RoMEO website.
