The revised Swiss National Open Access Strategy aims at making all publicly funded scholarly publications freely available. The updated strategy focuses on providing immediate, machine-readable access to scientific knowledge at no charge and with no embargo. This open dissemination of research findings brings added value to society and academia.
In 2017, swissuniversities and SNSF have set an ambitious vision of achieving 100% open access to publicly funded scholarly publications with the first Swiss National Strategy on Open Access. Pursuing this vision has considerably advanced the open access transformation with open access publications rising and closed articles dropping from 50% in 2017 to 27% in 2022. Open Access has been established as an idea and introduced as a policy across universities in Switzerland. In order to build on this progress and to be aligned with the international and national developments, the two strategy partners have initiated a review of the 2017 strategy and present today an updated, forward-looking strategy.
The revised Open Access Strategy aims to make all publicly funded scholarly publications openly accessible. To be considered open access, publications must be immediately available in a machine-readable format, free of charge, with no embargo, and under an open licence. The updated Strategy drives the paradigm shift towards open access forward, which is to be completed by 2032 at the latest. swissuniversities and the SNSF are dedicated to building a robust open access landscape. They do so by specifying the systemic and cultural framework conditions, which are required to address current developments and challenges in the dynamic open access landscape.
Scholarly publishing in Switzerland is heterogeneous and multilingual. Hence, the revised strategy is committed to multiple open access publishing methods and formats. This includes publishing in open access journals or books (Gold, Diamond OA) and depositing finalised manuscripts in repositories (green OA). By fostering this diversity, the strategy aims to reduce systemic dependencies – which in turn allows to further establish an ecosystem characterised by academic quality and financial sustainability.
To achieve this vision, the strategy emphasises developing and coordinating infrastructure and services (for diamond and green open access in particular), establishing a supportive legal framework, negotiating with publishers and fostering an open access culture within research communities. The universities, swissuniversities and the SNSF self-commit to implementing the revised Strategy according to their institutional contexts, with the Delegation Open Science of swissuniversities ensuring the coordination and collaboration between the partners. This revised strategy will also guide the Open Access-related activities and priorities of the PgB Programme Open Science II, an integral part of swissuniversities’ commitment to implement open access in the Swiss higher education landscape.
Read the revised strategy here.
Information on the strategy review process and the results of the consultation are available here.
Further information on OA in Switzerland:
- SNF: Open Access in 2021: https://data.snf.ch/stories/open-access-publications-monitoring-2021-en.html
- Swiss National Open Access Monitor https://oamonitor.ch/
Contact:
Rahel Imobersteg, Head of Division higher education policy, rahel.imobersteg@clutterswissuniversities.ch