Research Council of Finland open science requirements

Open access to scientific publications - Research Council of Finland

Applicants must include a publication plan and a description of measures to ensure open access as part of their research plan.

Requirements in calls opened after 1 January 2021 

1. Peer-reviewed articles shall be made immediately open access under open licenses
   • CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC0 or CC BY-ND
2. Peer-reviewed articles must be deposited to a trusted repository that guarantees long-term storage and free open access to the publication (ACRIS/Aaltodoc in Aalto University)
   • Personal websites and databases, publisher websites, as well as cloud storage services, Academia.edu, ResearchGate etc. are not considered as trusted repositories.

The Research Council of Finland also urges researchers to publish conference articles and monographs with open access.

Options for open access publishing

1. Publish article in an open access journal under a CC BY license
2. Publish article in a subscription journal under a CC BY license by utilizing Aalto's open access agreements
   • Peer-reviewed articles produced in RCF-funded projects may not be published using the so-called hybrid model, where individual articles published in subscription journals are made open access on payment.
3. Publish article non-open access in a subscription journal and self-archive the peer-reviewed manuscript (AAM) open access in a trusted repository (ACRIS/Aaltodoc in Aalto University) under a CC BY license
   • Aalto University has adopted a prior licence model that enables self-archiving and immediate open access of peer-reviewed manuscripts under a CC license required by the funder, regardless of any restrictions set by the publisher.
   • Prior licence model applies to manuscripts submitted for review on or after 1 January 2026.

Open access fees (APC fees)

• Open access fees of open access journals can be covered by basic funding / included in the overheads of sites of research. Please consult your department controllers in advance regarding the fee.
• Aalto's open access agreements may cover the open access fees.

Immediate open access through Aalto University prior licence model

• With the help of the Aalto University prior licence model, the researcher and the university implement immediate open access publishing of research publications as is required by the research funders, regardless of any restrictions defined by the publisher.
• The prior licence model allows researchers to meet funders' open access requirements even in cases where paying the open access fee (APC fee) is not feasible, or publisher's policy does not allow self-archiving without an embargo or under Creative Commons license required by the funder. 

Support and help

• Please contact Open Science and ACRIS team at acris@aalto.fi for guidance and help.

Requirements in calls opened before 1 January 2021 

Open access of peer-reviewed scientific articles is required, but embargoes (publication delay periods) are allowed:

• Humanities and social sciences: 12 months
• Other fields: 6 months 

Open access fees (APC fees)

• In calls opened before 2021, open access fees (article processing charges, APC fees) may be included in the research costs of the project.

Data management and openness - Research Council of Finland

• The research data must be opened whenever possible.
• Research data shall be managed and made available following the FAIR principles.
• It is possible not to open the research data, if there is a justified reason for that, for example if the data contains trade secrets or if there is personal data that cannot be anonymized. If the data cannot be published, create a description of your data and publish the metadata in a data archive/finder. In Aalto the suitable system is ACRIS.
• In case the research data can be exploited by commercialization, it may be possible to open the data after the commercialization activities. Read more on commercialization and opening the research results: Publishing and commercialization, can I have both? 

1. After a positive funding decision, you must write the a data management plan (DMP)
   • See below for guides and Research Council of Finland DMP templates.
   • Aalto's general guidance on Data Management Plans.
   • Help and guidance are available from researchdata@aalto.fi
   • The consortium has a joint data management plan, and only the consortium PI will submit the plan when approving the funding.
2. Send the DMP to researchdata@aalto.fi for review in Word format
3. Research Services must accept the DMP before it can be submitted to the Research Council of Finland. The acceptance will be given by e-mail after Research Services has reviewed the DMP.
4. Submit the final accepted DMP to the Research Council of Finland SARA system and accept the funding in SARA.
   • Research Council of Finland guidelines for accepting funding (.pdf)

1. Guide for Data Management Plan (.pdf)
2. Data Management Plan template (.docx)
3. Data Management Table example for DMP (.docx)

1. Guide for Research Infrastructure Data Management Policy (.pdf)
2. Template for Research Infrastructure Policy (.docx)

Data management policy - Research Council of Finland