Open Access Publishing

• In gold open access, articles are published in an open access journal or platform where all the content is freely available, without any paywalls.  

Open access fees

• Gold open access journals charge open access fees (APC fees) from authors, because there are no subscription fees for readers.
• Open access journals of some publishers are covered by Aalto’s open access agreements.
• If a journal is not covered by our agreements, and publishing requires a mandatory APC fee, please confirm funding with your department in advance. Aalto University does not have a central open access fund.

Funders’ policies 

• Plan S funders, such as the EU and the Research Council of Finland, encourage publishing in open access journals. 
• In EU Horizon Europe projects, only APC fees of gold open access journals are eligible as direct project costs. 

• In diamond open access, articles are published in an open access journal or platform where all the content is freely available, without any paywalls. 
• Diamond open access journals are typically smaller in publication volume and are run by universities, research organisations or scholarly societies. Diamond open access is particularly common in national scientific journals. 

Open access fees

• Diamond open access journals do not charge open access fees (APC fees).

Funders’ policies 

• Plan S funders, such as the EU and the Research Council of Finland, encourage publishing in open access journals.
• Open Research Europe is a scientific publishing platform for EU projects. Researchers funded by EU Horizon Europe can publish their articles open access in Open Research Europe without APC fees. 

Good to know 

• Diamond open access journals can be searched from Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) --> Journals without fees.  
• Learn more about diamond open access: Current Trends in Academic Publishing: Diamond Open Access Journals, 24.10.2023 (webinar recording). 

• In hybrid open access, articles are published in a subscription journal or platform, where only some articles are openly available, and the rest are behind a paywall. To access the articles behind a paywall, readers must have a subscription. 
• Hybrid open access is particularly common in international scientific journals. 

Open access fees

• Hybrid open access journals charge open access fees (APC fees) from authors, if the article is published open access.
• Hybrid open access journals of many publishers are covered by Aalto’s open access agreements.
• If a journal is not covered by our agreements, you can consider green open access (self-archiving of the peer-reviewed manuscript) as an alternative route to open access.  

Funders’ policies 

• Plan S funders, such as the EU and the Research Council of Finland (RCF), do not financially support publishing via hybrid open access model. 
• In RCF-funded projects, peer‑reviewed articles may not be published via hybrid open access model, where individual articles are made open access by paying a separate APC fee. Instead, researchers should use other routes to open access or use Aalto’s open access agreements, if possible. 

• In green open access, articles are published behind a paywall in a subscription journal or platform. To access the articles, readers must have a subscription. 
• To provide open access, peer-reviewed manuscript (author accepted manuscript, AAM) can be deposited in a publication repository and made openly available. This is called self-archiving. 

Open access fees

• Self-archived versions are freely available, and green open access does not involve open access fees (APC fees).  

Funders’ policies 

• Plan S funders, such as the EU and the Research Council of Finland, support green open access as a route to compliance. 
• Regardless of the open access route chosen, publications must be deposited in a trusted repository that ensures long‑term preservation and open availability of the publication. 

Good to know 

• Peer-reviewed manuscript is the version that has been accepted for publication by the publisher. Its scientific content is identical to the published article (Version of Record), but it does not have publisher's layout or logo on it. 
• It is important to keep a copy of the peer-reviewed manuscript of your article for self-archiving, even if you are not the corresponding author.  
• Aalto University has adopted a prior licence model in 2026. Internationally, the prior licence model is known as the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS). It secures researchers' right to self-archive their peer-reviewed manuscript with immediate open access and under the Creative Commons license required by the funder, regardless of any restrictions (e.g. embargoes) set by the publisher. 
• Learn more about Self-archiving | Aalto University
• Familiarize yourself with Aalto University prior licence model | Aalto University

Journal Search Tool

Journal Search Tool is a database of more than 12 000 scientific journals covered by Aalto's open access agreements. Aalto‑affiliated corresponding authors can publish their articles open access without paying the APC fee or with a discount.

Open Policy Finder

Open Policy Finder provides information about publishers' and journals' open access policies, including self-archiving (green open access). 

JUFO portal (Publication Forum)

JUFO portal is maintained by the Publication Forum. In JUFO portal, you can search for publication channels e.g., based on their open access status.

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) 

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) is the most extensive, critical directory of scientific open access journals. 

Free Journal Network 

Free Journal Network aims to promote scholarly journals run according to the Fair Open Access model. These journals are controlled by the scholarly community, and most of them are indexed in the DOAJ database as well.

Journal.fi 

Journal.fi is a service maintained by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) for publishing Finnish scholarly journals.

DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books) 

DOAB (Directory of Open Access Books) is the most extensive, critical directory of scientific open access books. Open access books can be browsed by both subject and publisher.   

Oapen 

Oapen is an extensive, critical directory on open access books.

InTech Open Access Books 

InTech Open Access Books contains e-books in the fields of science, technology, health sciences and social sciences.

Edition.fi 

Edition.fi is an online platform which includes Finnish monographs and edited volumes.

Helsinki University Press (HUP) 

Helsinki University Press is a scholarly open access publisher of the University of Helsinki and Gaudeamus. All of its publications are freely available online.

Tampere University Press (TUP) 

Tampere University Press is a scholarly open access publisher of peer-reviewed academic books focusing on social and human sciences.

arXiv is a discipline-specific repository for e.g., physics, mathematics, and computer science. Aalto University is funding the service through the FinELib consortium.

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is the most extensive, critical directory of scientific open access books. Aalto University is funding the service through the FinELib consortium.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is the most extensive, critical directory of scientific open access journals. Aalto University is funding the service through the FinELib consortium.

DSpace is an open-source repository software, which is used also in Aalto's publication repository, Aaltodoc. Aalto University is funding the service through the FinELib consortium.

Open Policy Finder provides information about publishers' and journals' open access policies, including self-archiving (green open access). Aalto University is funding the service through the FinELib consortium.

ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-based effort to provide a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers. The ORCID community includes individual researchers, publishers, universities, research institutions, and societies.

Researcher identification and research profiles | Aalto University