Open access agreements with publishers
You can take advantage of the agreements when the following criteria are met:
- You are affiliated with Aalto University, ie. you are a researcher, doctoral student or other staff member of Aalto University.
- Your affiliation with Aalto university is clearly stated in the article.
- Most publishers require that your affiliation with Aalto University is valid at the time of the acceptance of the article.
- You are the corresponding author of the article, i.e. you submit the manuscript and communicate with the publisher through the peer review process.
- You use your Aalto email when submitting the manuscript and choose Aalto University as your organization, because the identification is based on these.
Please note:
- The agreements cover open access fees (APC), but not additional costs like color photographs or extra pages.
- Most publishers have a shared pool of free open access articles for the FinElib Consortium and an annual or agreement period quota. Please keep in mind the quota may run out.
- All the journals of a publisher are not covered by the agreements. Please check the detailed journal lists and instructions in the table below. Agreements cover mainly hybrid journals, with some exceptions.
- If the journal is not included in the agreement or you are not able to otherwise take advantage of the agreement, please check the possibility for green open access (self-archiving).
Funders' open access requirements:
- European Commission and Academy of Finland are participating in the open access initiative Plan S, which affects the open access requirements in funding calls starting from 2021.
- Our open access agreements are Plan S compliant transformative agreements.
- Journal Checker Tool includes information whether journal is included in a transformative agreement, please see example.
- Support and help: [email protected]
Publisher |
Discount for Aalto corresponding authors |
Valid until Article quota |
Journals included | Guidelines and detailed journal lists | Creative Commons Licences | Current news |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ACM -Association for Computing Machinery | No APC fee | 31.12.2024 |
Selection of: |
Open Access Publishing in ACM |
CC BY (agreement can be used only if CC BY is selected) |
26.7.2022: New agreement for period 1.7.2022–31.12.2024 |
ACS - The American Chemical Society | No APC fee |
31.12.2023 Article quota for the agreement period |
Hybrid journals Full OA journals |
Open Access Publishing in American Chemical Society | CC BY | |
Elsevier | No APC fee |
31.12.2023 Article quota for the agreement period |
Hybrid journals | Open Access Publishing in Elsevier |
CC BY CC BY-NC-ND |
|
Elsevier Cell Press
|
No APC fee
|
31.12.2024 Annual article quota |
Hybrid journals | Open Access Publishing in Cell Press journals |
CC BY CC BY-NC-ND |
|
Emerald | No APC fee |
31.12.2023 No quota |
Emerald Premier journals | Open Access Publishing in Emerald | CC BY | |
Frontiers | 10 % discount |
31.12.2024 No quota |
Full OA journals | Open Access Publishing in Frontiers |
CC BY | |
IEEE | No APC fee |
31.12.2023 Article quota for the agreement period as well as annual quota |
Hybrid journals Full OA journals |
Open Access Publishing in IEEE |
CC BY CC BY-NC-ND |
|
IOP Publishing - Institute of Physics |
No APC fee
|
31.12.2024 No quota |
Hybrid journals |
Open Access Publishing in IOP Publishing | CC BY |
2.5.2022: New agreement for 2022-2024 31.8.2022: Nuclear Fusion will turn into full open access journal in 1.1.2023 and will not be included in the agreement after that. |
MDPI | 10 % discount |
14.10.2023 No quota |
Full OA journals | Open Access Publishing in MDPI |
CC BY | |
Nature Research (See also Springer Nature) |
No APC fee |
31.12.2024 Article quota for the agreement period |
Hybrid journals | Open Access Publishing in Nature Research | CC BY | 23.6.2022: New agreement for period 1.6.2022 - 31.12.2024 |
RSC - The Royal Society of Chemistry |
No APC fee for hybrid journals 15 % discount for gold open access journals |
31.12.2023 |
Hybrid journals Gold OA journals |
Open Access Publishing in RSC |
CC BY
|
14.9.2022: 15 % discount for RSC gold open access journals is applied. Please note that RSC has many new gold open access journals in which APC fees are currently waived for all authors. |
SAGE |
No APC fee for hybrid journals 20 % discount for gold open access journals |
New agreement for 2023-2024 in process, contact [email protected] for more information |
Hybrid journals Gold OA journals |
Open Access Publishing in SAGE | CC BY | 2.1.2023: Open access publishing continues in early 2023 as before. |
Science Advances | 15 % discount |
New agreement for 2023-2024 in process, contact [email protected] for more information |
Open Access Publishing in Science Advances |
CC BY CC BY-NC |
2.1.2023: New agreement for 2023-2024 in process, contact [email protected] for more information. | |
SCOAP3 | No APC fee | 31.12.2024 | Key journals in the field of High-Energy Physics | Open Access Publishing in SCOAP3 journals | CC BY | |
Springer Nature (see also Nature Research) |
No APC fee |
31.12.2023 Article quota for the agreement period |
Hybrid journals | Open Access Publishing in Springer Nature |
CC BY CC BY-NC |
|
Taylor & Francis |
No APC fee
|
New agreement for 2023-2024 in process, contact [email protected] for more information
|
Hybrid journals | Open Access Publishing in Taylor & Francis |
CC BY CC BY-NC-ND |
2.1.2023: New agreement for 2023-2024 in process, contact [email protected] for more information. |
Wiley |
No APC fee
|
New agreement for 2023-2024 in process, contact [email protected] for more information
|
Hybrid journals Full OA journals |
Open Access Publishing in Wiley |
CC BY CC BY-NC CC BY-NC-ND |
2.1.2023: Articles published in early January 2023 will be made open access retrospectively. Please see detailed instructions at Open Access Publishing in Wiley
|
-
Agreement period: 1.7.2022 - 31.12.2024.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article has been accepted for publication in one of these ACM titles during 1.7.2022–31.12.2024.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
-
When you submit your manuscript, use your Aalto email address.
-
Once your paper has been accepted for publication (and you have you used your organisational email address), you will receive an email from ACM containing instructions to Open Access publishing.
-
To make your article eligible for the agreement choose:
-
Institutionally Paid Open Access, and
-
CC license / Allow remixing (CC BY 4.0 license)
-
- Please note that you can utilize the agreement only if you are the corresponding author of the article and you choose CC license for your article.
-
Agreement period: 1.1.2021 - 31.12.2023.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Your Aalto affiliation should be valid at the time of the article acceptance.
- The agreement covers publishing peer-reviewed open access articles without article processing charge (APC) in ACS journals (both hybrid and full open access journals).
- There is a limited amount of free open access articles but they are estimated to cover publications for the agreement period.
-
If you are not able to publish your article under the agreement, you'll have ACS Author Choice option with discounts.
-
The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
-
When you submit your manuscript in the Paragon Plus system, use your Aalto email address and select Aalto University as your organization.
-
Once your article is accepted, you will receive an email invitation to enter ACS's Journal Publishing Tool (JPA). Sign in and update requested information.
-
Ensure that you want to use FinELib agreement to publish open access by choosing “Yes, I wish to publish open access as per agreement”.
-
Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
Open Access Publishing in American Chemical Society journals
- Agreement period: 1.1.2021 - 31.12.2023.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Your Aalto affiliation should be valid at the time of the article acceptance.
- The agreement covers publishing peer-reviewed open access articles without article processing charge (APC) in Elsevier hybrid journals.
- There is a limited amount of free open access articles for the agreement period.
- Please note: Elsevier full open access journals are not covered by the agreement.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
-
When your article is accepted, you will receive an e-mail from Elsevier asking you to fill in the Rights and Access form. It is most important to select Aalto University as your organisation.
-
Affiliation details will be used to identify the authors and match them with the open access agreement.
-
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
- Agreement period: 1.1.2022 - 31.12.2024.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Your Aalto affiliation should be valid at the time of the article acceptance.
- The agreement covers publishing open access articles without article processing charge (APC) in Cell Press hybrid journals listed on an eligible journals list.
- There is a limited number of free open access articles available during the agreement period.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
-
When your article is accepted, you will receive an e-mail from Elsevier asking you to fill in the Rights and Access form. It is most important to select Aalto University as your organisation.
-
Affiliation details will be used to identify the authors and match them with the open access agreement.
-
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
- Agreement period 1.1.2021 - 31.12.2023.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Your Aalto affiliation should be valid at the time of the article acceptance.
- The agreement covers publishing open access articles without article processing charge (APC) in Emerald Premier journals with a free open access voucher.
- There is unlimited amount of free open access vouchers for 2022-2023.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
- Use your Aalto email when submitting the article, because Emerald will recognize author's eligibility for the voucher from the institutional email domain.
- Agreement period: 1.4.2022 - 31.12.2024.
- The agreement covers peer reviewed articles (Frontiers categories A, B and C) in Frontiers journals, which are Plan S compliant open access journals.
- The agreement gives 10 % discount on APC fee for Aalto affiliated corresponding authors, if the APC fee is covered by the department or project.
- Please note: The discount does not apply to APCs paid individually by authors.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
To be eligible for the 10 % discount on APC:
- You should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author.
- Your article should be submitted or accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Your department or project should pay the APC.
Frontiers will identify your eligibility:
- Based on your invoice selection (Choose Payer → Click "Frontiers institutional members" → Start typing the name of your organization and select the correct one from the list.)
- Based on your affiliation details (corresponding author's first affiliation).
- Based on your email domain (official domain of your institution).
- We’ll ask you to confirm that your department or project will pay the APC, and then we’ll approve the request for discount. If we don’t get the confirmation, Frontiers will invoice the corresponding author and no discount will be applied.
- Agreement period 1.1.2021 - 31.12.2023.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Your Aalto affiliation should be valid at the time of the article acceptance.
- The agreement covers publishing peer-reviewed open access articles without article processing charge (APC) in IEEE journals (both hybrid and full open access journals).
- There is a limited amount of free open access articles.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
- Please remember to use your Aalto University email address when submitting a manuscript and update Aalto email in IEEE system.
- If your article has been accepted for publication in a hybrid journal:
- You will receive an email with a link to IEEE’s system.
- You will be asked to upload the final files and to choose between traditional and open access publishing -> choose open access.
- Choose an open access publishing license. We recommend that you choose CC BY which is required by many funders.
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
- If your article has been accepted for publication in a fully open access journal:
- You will receive an email with a link to IEEE’s system. You will be asked to upload the final files.
- Choose an open access publishing license. We recommend that you choose CC BY which is required by many funders.
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
- Agreement period: 1.1.2022 - 31.12.2024.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- The agreement covers publishing open access articles without article processing charge (APC) in IOP Publishing hybrid journals listed on eligible journals list A, B and C.
- Please note: Nuclear Fusion will turn into full open access journal in 1.1.2023 and will not be included in the agreement after that.
- Please note: IOP full open access journals (journals in "List D") are not covered by the agreement.
- There is an unlimited number of free open access articles available during the agreement period.
- Eligible article types are research paper, special issue, letter and review article types.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
-
Eligibility to publish open access within the agreement is identified based on the affiliation chosen by the corresponding author, so please remember to choose Aalto University as your affiliation when submitting your manuscript.
-
Affiliation of the corresponding author is verified by the publisher. Publisher will contact eligible corresponding authors and offer the possibility to publish their article open access with CC BY license. Corresponding author has five days to opt-out from this offer.
- Agreement period: 14.10.2021 - 14.10.2023.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- The agreement gives Aalto University authors 10% discount on APCs (Article processing charges) in MDPI journals, which are Plan S compliant open access journals.
- Aalto affiliated authors also receive a 10% discount on charges associated with open access book publishing with MDPI (i.e., book processing charges; BPCs).
Guidelines for authors:
- Please select Aalto University for the discount on the submission form.
- Please note that only one discount through an IOAP scheme is permitted per paper, and the discount cannot be combined with other available discounts (e.g., discount vouchers, or society membership discounts).
- Agreement period: 1.6.2022–31.12.2024.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Your Aalto affiliation should be valid at the time of the article acceptance.
- The agreement covers open access publishing without article processing charge (APC) in Nature Research hybrid journals.
- Please note: Nature full open access journals (e.g. Nature Communications) are not included in the agreement.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
- Once your article has been accepted, you will receive an email with a link to the Springer’s My publication system. To check the eligibility for free open access, you will be asked to add your affiliation and institution (Aalto University). After that you can choose CC license for your article.
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
- Agreement period: 1.1.2022 - 31.12.2023.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- The agreement allows Aalto affiliated corresponding to publish their articles open access:
- without article processing charge (APC) in RSC hybrid journals, or
- with 15% discount of the journal’s APC in RSC gold open access journals
- Please also note that RSC has many new gold open access journals in which APC fees are currently waived for all authors.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
- RSC identifies eligible authors based on their email address. When submitting your article to RSC, please use Aalto email.
- Once your article has been accepted, you will receive an email with a link to the RSC’s licensing system. Ensure that you are identified with Aalto and the “Gold Open Access Publication” option is free for you.
Open access publishing in Royal Society of Chemistry journals
2.1.2023: New agreement for 2023-2024 in process. Open access publishing continues in early 2023 as before.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- The agreement allows Aalto affiliated corresponding to publish their articles open access:
- without article processing charge (APC) in SAGE hybrid journals, or
- with 20% discount of the journal’s APC in SAGE gold open access journals.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
- SAGE identifies your right to publish Open Access free of charge or with 20 % discount primarily based on the institutional affiliation you choose from the drop down menu in ScholarOne system when you submit your manuscript.
- If you don't choose your institutional affiliation from the drop down menu but instead write it yourself, SAGE uses your email address to identify your eligibility.
- When your article is received at SAGE, SAGE will send you and any other authors of the article an e-mail where SAGE informs you of your right to publish Open Access at no cost or with a discount.
- The e-mail contains a link to SAGE's Open Access Portal. Any author of the article can follow the link to proceed to the next step (Note! This has to be done within 14 days if you publish in hybrid journal!)
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
2.1.2023: New agreement for 2023-2024 in process, contact [email protected] for more information.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Aalto affiliated authors are entitled to publish their articles with a 15 % discount in Science Advances, which is a Plan S compliant open access journal.
Guidelines for authors:
- You are the paying author (usually the corresponding author) or the person acting on the author’s behalf using the online payment system.
- After your article is accepted, you will receive an email notifying you that your APC payment is due. This email will contain a link to the Author Charge page on RightsLink.
- Choose licence CC BY4.0 and click “Apply Discounts”.
- SCOAP3 is a partnership of over three thousand libraries, key funding agencies and research centers. Aalto University is one of the partners.
- SCOAP3 has converted key journals in the field of High-Energy Physics to Open Access at no cost for authors.
- The open access articles in the field of High-Energy Physics are published at no cost for authors.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for authors:
- Always check the journal-specific guidelines so that the article can be published as part of the SCOAP3 agreement.
- Agreement period: 1.1.2021–31.12.2023.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Your Aalto affiliation should be valid at the time of the article acceptance.
- The agreement covers open access publishing without article processing charge (APC) in Springer Compact hybrid journals.
- Please note: Springer Nature full open access journals are not included in the agreement.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
- Once your article has been accepted, you will receive an email with a link to the Springer’s My publication system. To check the eligibility for free open access, you will be asked to add your affiliation and institution (Aalto University). After that you can choose CC license for your article.
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
2.1.2023: New agreement for 2023-2024 in process, contact [email protected] for more information.
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- Your Aalto affiliation should be valid at the time of the article acceptance.
- The agreement covers open access publishing without article processing charge (APC) in Taylor & Francis hybrid journals and in open access journal Annals of Medicine.
- Please note, there is an annual article quota and limited number of OA articles available.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
- When submitting the manuscript in T&F system, always choose Aalto University from the drop down menu and use your organizational email address to make your organization known to T&F.
- When filling in the Author Publishing Agreement, please choose Aalto-yliopisto from the drop down menu.
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
2.1.2023: New agreement for 2023-2024 in process. Articles published in early January 2023 will be made open access retrospectively. Please see detailed instructions at Open Access Publishing in Wiley
- To be eligible, you should be Aalto affiliated corresponding author, and your article should be accepted for publication during the agreement period.
- If you publish your article in a hybrid journal, your Aalto affiliation should be valid at the time of the article acceptance.
- The agreement covers publishing peer-reviewed open access articles without article processing charge (APC) in Wiley journals (both hybrid and full open access journals).
- Please note, there is an annual article quota and limited number of OA articles available.
- The agreement is a Plan S compliant transformative agreement.
Guidelines for corresponding authors:
- Guidelines for open access journals
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified at the submission stage and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
- Guidelines for hybrid journals
- Once you get the acceptance letter from Wiley you should log in to www.wileyauthors.com, indicate Aalto-yliopisto (Aalto University) and make the open access publication selection (Select OnlineOpen).
- The request to make an article OA should always happen before its published not afterwards.
- Your affiliation with Aalto University is verified and you will receive an email confirmation after this.
Open Access Publishing
Open access to publications ensures that scientific publications are accessible to everyone free of charge.

Plan S
Plan S is an open access initiative launched by the EU Commission and Science Europe. At its core is the objective that, in calls starting from 1 January 2021, all scholarly articles resulting from public research funding must be published in open access journals or on open access platforms.

Funders' open science requirements
Research funders want to promote open science and research, which is why they set requirements for the openness of research publications and data they are funding. European Commission (EC) and Academy of Finland are participating in the open access initiative Plan S, which affects the open access and open data requirements in calls starting in 2021.

Publishing agreements
In publishing agreements, authors agree on copyright issues, such as the principles of authorship and terms for open access publishing and self-archiving (green open access). Researchers should make sure that terms either offer immediate gold open access or allow for green open access agreed upon with the funding bodies.
