Further information is available on https://www.oa-fund.unibas.ch

The awards are available to the Faculty of Theology, the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Philosophy and History, the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Psychology.

• Please check in time the financing possibility for your contribution.
• All major research sponsors support Open Access publications. Information about the application options may be found on the sponsors’ websites:
  • Swiss National Science Foundation
  • Horizon 2020

If you have questions, please contact openaccess@clutterunibas.ch

General

University of Basel authors receive discounts on publication fees from the following publishers or the publication costs are covered in full by agreements with the publishers.  Before submitting a manuscript, please find out about the financing of publication fees for your journals. If you have any questions, please contact openaccess@clutterunibas.ch.

The affiliation with the University of Basel is usually recognised by the @unibas email address, via the IP range of the university, or the University of Basel must be selected during the submission process.

Explanation of the Article Quota Status column

For some publishers, the number of articles supported is limited. Once the quota has been exhausted, funding must be organised independently, or the green open access route (at https://universe-intern.unibas.ch/) should be followed instead of the publisher’s open access option. For most publishers, the acceptance date is the authoritative date for verification.

• unlimited: there is no limit to the number of articles that can be published open access by University of Basel authors.
• open: the number of articles that can be published open access by University of Basel authors is limited. As soon as the quota is reached, "closed" will be displayed here. If possible, a time estimate (in brackets) will be made as to when the article quota will be sufficient.
• closed: the limited article quota has been reached. As a rule, a new quota will be available the following year.

The SNSF adapted its Open Access guidelines in 2023. All articles must now be made freely accessible immediately. These changes are relevant for all research projects approved from 2023 onwards.

cOAlition S is an association of research funders who are committed to free and unrestricted access to academic publications. In 2022, the SNSF joined cOAlition S and has adapted its funding conditions accordingly since 2023:

All publications resulting from SNSF projects submitted after January 1, 2023, must be published Open Access without an embargo and under a CC-BY licence (a 12-month embargo is accepted for books). The Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) is a mechanism for fulfilling these requirements.

The Open Access requirements can still be met in three ways: Publication in an Open Access journal (gold route), in a hybrid journal, or as a manuscript version (Author Accepted Manuscript) in a digital archive (secondary publication or green Open Access route).

Researchers who make their publication freely accessible by means of secondary publication via the green Open Access route can use the following standard wording and include it in all manuscript versions (Submitted to Author Accepted Manuscript):

“This research was funded in whole or in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) [Grant number]. For the purpose of Open Access, a CC BY public copyright licence is applied to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.”

If researchers receive a negative decision regarding the Rights Retention Strategy from the publisher during the publication process and still have to comply with a blocking or embargo period, then the written correspondence with the publisher should be retained. In this way, efforts to comply with the funding requirements can be demonstrated to the SNSF.

Those who wish to publish their paper in an academic Open Access journal often pay publication fees, so-called Article Processing Charges, to cover the costs of editorial processes, marketing and quality control. With the emergence of Open Access publication models, dubious journals are also entering the publication market. So-called "predatory journals" demand publication fees for editorial services that are not provided or are provided with low quality. These unethical business practices not only damage the academic publication landscape and Open Access, but are also not without consequences for the reputation of the authors.

When looking for a suitable journal in which to publish, it is worth paying more attention, particularly when journals are not known and the following aspects are noticed:

Correspondence

• Request for submission by email when contact details are unclear and a submission system is missing
• Email exchanges with generalised salutation and automatically-generated emails

Journal

• Title begins with International, Global, World, American, European, Advanced Journal of… and/or is very similar to a well-known journal
• The website and articles contain advertisements and are poorly laid out
• Misleading or non-existent reference numbers: ISSN (link ISSN: portal.issn.org) is not entered, own impact factor, founding date and number of issues are unknown
• No archiving of previously-published issues
• The editorial board is not related to the subject, is not listed or its members cannot be found or can be found with different affiliations

Publishing

• A quick publication process could indicate deficient quality control and a lack of peer review procedures
• Missing licences and user agreements
• Non-transparent publication costs

If in doubt, it should be checked if the journal

• is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• is referenced in relevant specialist databases
• publisher is a member of the "Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association" (OASPA) or the "Committee on Publication Ethics" (COPE)
• has had a complaint made against it in Cabells Predatory Reports (only within the computer network of the University of Basel)

If you have any questions, please contact openaccess@unibas.ch

What to do, if a full-text article is not accessible?

The University Library Basel recommends the following steps to researchers and students: a search for the full-text article using academic search engines, a search using browser extensions for Open Access, requesting information from researchers. You can find further information here.

If you have any questions, please contact openaccess@clutterunibas.ch

On 8 October 2019, the Rectorate of the University of Basel adopted the revised Open Access Policy.