Open Access routes

Unlike traditional journals that often require subscriptions or fees, OA removes barriers and increases visibility and reuse of scientific results. Open Access publishing can be realised through several non-exclusive routes:

• Gold Open Access (Open Access publishing): The publisher makes the article freely available immediately upon publication. This often involves a one-time fee, known as an Article Processing Charge (APC) or Book Processing Charge (BPC), which may be paid by the author, their institution, or the research funder. These fees can range from a few hundred to several thousand euros.
• Green Open Access (self-archiving): The author, or someone on their behalf, makes the published work—or part of it—freely available in an online repository, with the publisher’s permission. Some publishers require an embargo period before the work can be shared, and may also limit which version of the article can be archived.
• Hybrid Open Access: This refers to journals, conference proceedings, or edited volumes that include both Open Access content and content that requires a subscription or purchase.
• Diamond Open Access: Publications are freely available to readers without subscription fees, and no charges are levied on authors (no APCs or BPCs). Costs are usually covered by institutions, research organisations, libraries, or public funders. Diamond Open Access is particularly valued in Europe because it ensures equitable access for both authors and readers, and it supports community-driven, non-profit publishing models.

Sacha Hodencq. ouvrirlascience. Dissemination of scientific work in open access , in Passport for Open Science. [Vidéo]. Canal-U. https://www.canal-u.tv/138446.

Open Access practices for Horizon Europe

Under Horizon Europe, immediate open access is mandatory for all peer-reviewed scientific articles produced in the project. This means that as soon as your article is accepted for publication, you must make a version publicly available in a trusted repository — without embargo. You can do this by depositing the Author Accepted Manuscript, the AAM — this is the final version after peer review but before the journal’s typesetting — or, when the publisher allows it, the Version of Record, the formatted published version. The key point is that the deposit must happen immediately upon acceptance, not months later, and definitely not after journal embargoes.

Depositing the manuscript in a repository such as HAL, Zenodo, or your institution’s repository ensures that the article is open, discoverable, citable, and compliant with OpenAIRE and Horizon Europe. Posting the article only on the journal’s website is not enough — even if the journal is open access — because the repository deposit is an explicit requirement. The second important rule is Rights Retention. This means that as an author, you keep the right to share your accepted manuscript openly, even if the publisher’s policy indicates an embargo. Horizon Europe grants you this right automatically, as long as you acknowledge EU funding in the manuscript.

📒 RIGHTS RETENTION STATEMENT. This work was funded by the Εuropean Union under the Horizon Europe grant [grant number]. As set out in the Grant Agreement, beneficiaries must ensure that at the latest at the time of publication, open access is provided via a trusted repository to the published version or the final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication under the latest available version of the Creative Commons Attribution International Public Licence (CC BY) or a licence with equivalent rights. CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND or equivalent licenses could be applied to long-text formats.

Open Peer Review: transparent and traceable reviewing process

The peer review process in academic journals is a critical evaluation system where submitted manuscripts are scrutinized by experts in the relevant field before publication. After an initial editorial assessment, the manuscript gets sent to several independent reviewers, who examine the work for originality, significance, validity, clarity, and adherence to scientific standards. Reviewers provide feedback and recommend whether the manuscript should be accepted, revised, or rejected. The editor then decides whether the submission is worth publishing based on reviewer comments and suggestions. This process aims to ensure the credibility, reliability, and quality of scholarly literature.

Anonymous peer review and refereeing is the current gold standard in academic publishing. Sometimes this means anonymity of both the reviewer and the author (double-blind), but often only the reviewer is anonymous (single-blind). The most commonly cited reasons for anonymity are:

·       Ability to criticize any manuscript without fear of retribution.

·       Dispassionate reading of reviews.

·       Protects collegial relationships.

·       Supports early career reviewers and referees.

·       Reviews are based on the papers' merits rather than the authors' reputation (double-blind).

Open science also aims to change peer review practices. Open peer review (OPR), also called transparent reviewing, can mean different things. The main goal is to make the review process more open, reliable, and fair. In open peer review, different parts of the process can be made visible—such as the identity of the reviewer or researcher, the reviewed content, the review report, comments, the interaction between reviewer and researcher, the platform, or a mix of these.

The benefits of open peer review include improving the quality of reviews, making the review process more visible, strengthening the integrity of research, and encouraging collaboration.

🌐Open Research Europe (ORE) is the European Commission’s open access publishing platform for Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries. It offers a fast, transparent, and free publishing route for researchers funded by the EU, ensuring compliance with funder requirements. All articles are openly accessible from the moment of publication, and authors do not pay any Article Processing Charges (APCs), as costs are fully covered by the Commission. While ORE shares many characteristics of the Diamond Open Access model (no fees for readers or authors), its eligibility is limited to researchers funded by the European Commission. The platform therefore represents a strong institutional commitment to openness, providing high visibility, rapid dissemination, and a collaborative peer review process that aligns with the core principles of Open Science.

Intellectual Property and Copyright

Open Science promotes the open sharing of research outputs, but this openness must respect the legal framework of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and Copyright.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), IPR covers two main areas: industrial property (patents, trademarks, designs) and copyright. Copyright protects literary, artistic, and scientific works such as articles, books, images, music, films, software, and databases. To be protected, a work must be original and represent the author’s intellectual creation. Importantly, copyright applies to the expression of ideas, not to the ideas themselves.

For researchers, this means that sharing articles, datasets, images, or code may require checking whether these materials are protected and under what conditions they can be reused. In the EU, copyright is regulated both by European directives and national laws, so obligations may vary by country.

There are three main ways that works can be reused legally:

1.    If they are distributed under an open license.

2.    If they are in the public domain (exclusive rights have expired, but moral rights remain).

3.    If reuse is allowed under Limitations and Exceptions (L&Es), such as for research, teaching, or quotation.

In short, Open Science does not replace copyright but works within it. By understanding these rules, researchers can make informed choices, avoid infringement, and use open licences to maximise the visibility and reuse of their work.

It is important to note that copyright does not extend to all products of the human intellect, such as ideas, procedures, methods of operation, or mathematical concepts.  This exclusion reflects the idea/expression dichotomy, which ensures that copyright safeguards do not hinder creativity or innovation in these fields. According to this principle, protection applies only to the concrete expression of an idea, not to the idea itself. Consequently, an author cannot claim exclusive rights over a concept as such, but only over the form in which it is expressed and made tangible.

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