Publishing agreements

Authorship

Aalto University is committed to the goal of the the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK), according to which the principles of authorship are discussed at the planning stage of the research project and that the authorship has been agreed upon at the latest before the manuscript is submitted for publication. The Authorship and explanation of responsibilites related to scientific publications provides a tool to prevent disputes regarding authorship.

The Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK): Agreeing on authorship. Recommendation for research publications Aalto University guidelines for agreeing on authorship

Publishing agreements

In the publishing agreement it is agreed on how the publisher, researcher and the university of the researcher may use the publication, e.g. whether the researcher is allowed to self-archive the article to the institutional repository of the university and which versions is allowed to be deposited. Self-archiving to a commercial service such as ResearchGate is often prohibited. Licenses for open access publishing are also often agreed upon in the publishing agreement.

Read more about Creative Commons Open Content LicensesIn accordance with Aalto University's copyright policy, the researcher signs a publishing agreement as the copyright owner. The publishing agreements should be archived, they tell you how you can use the publication.

Compliance with the requirements of the funder in the publishing agreements

In externally funded research projects, the ownership of copyright of all project results is transferred to Aalto University on the basis of Annex 1 to the employment contract. With regard to the scientific publications resulting from the externally financed projects, Aalto University is responsible, in relation to the funder, for complying with the funder's open science and open access publishing requirements. In accordance with the copyright policy, Aalto University transfers the signing of publishing agreement to a researcher, provided that the publishing agreement meets the requirements of the funder.

Please check the Funders' open science reguirements before signing the publishing agreement. For example, the funder may have requirements related to the immediate open access publishing and licenses.

The funder may imburse the open access fees (article processing charges, APCs) if they are included in the project budget. Please note that APC fees can only be paid for the duration of the research project. Once the project is over, this will no longer be possible. The funder may also require that the fees for open access publishing be paid by the researcher's university.

Plan S

Several European research funders are committed to the principles of Plan S, which promotes openness of research outputs. These principles apply to publications resulting from funding received from 1.1.2021.

Read more on Plan S

Read more on Funders' open science requirements

Read and publish agreements with publishers

Aalto University has open access agreements with publishers. This means that the researchers with the Aalto affiliation acting as corresponding authors can publish the articles without open access fees (APCs) or get discounts on them.

Open access agreements with publishers

Publishing agreement and self-archiving

Publishers define the version that can be deposited in the university’s repository (ACRIS, integrated to Aaltodoc in Aalto University) and the possible embargo period. Usually the version allowed is the so-called post-print, final peer-reviewed manuscript that has the corrections from peer-review but not the publisher’s layout, logo or pagination. You can check the default self-archiving (green open access) policies of well-known, international publishers on the Sherpa/Romeo website. Plase note that funders may have requirements related to immediate open access and licenses of the self-archived manuscripts.

ACRIS, open access publishing and manuscript serviceSherpa/RoMEO

Copyright and social media

Copyright applies also to sharing the original publications via social media networks (ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Mendeley). The researchers must take the copyright issues into account when sharing the publications through these platforms. The persistent availability of the publications is not guaranteed in networking sites. "How can I share it?" is an online service where you can find information on which version of the publication you can share e.g. in social media. However, not all publishers are included in the service.

How Can I share it?

Contact information

For any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Open Science and ACRIS team ([email protected]).