FP7 post-grant open access pilot project is coming to an end

In 2015, the EU FP7 announced a post-grant pilot project to ensure all FP7 funded projects are published in open access, even after the funding program ended. The objective of this pilot project is to encourage researchers to publish their work on open access platforms. To ensure this, the EU makes post-FP7 published articles eligible for article processing charges (APCs) reimbursement. Nonetheless, this fund is primarily aimed for research grants that did not cover research publishing funds on gold open access journals.

The post-grant pilot project allows researchers and institutions to seek APCs refunding. According to this pilot project, articles and monographs are eligible for a maximum of 2,000 and 6,000 euros, respectively.

Reimbursements

The program runs until the end of April 2017. A report shows that the project has already attracted a lot of applications for reimbursement. Not all application can get approval, however. According to OpenAire, so far nearly 800 submitted requests (covering more than 500 projects) have been fully or conditionally approved for reimbursement. In total, the FP7 pilot project report shows, 950,933 EUR has been distributed. This makes the average paid 1,623 euro per publication. About 6% of the request approved came from books and monographs. The rest went to published articles.

About 58% (462) of the approved reimbursement went to five countries: Spain (168), UK (160), Italy (113), Germany (106) and the Netherlands (73). The top five journals where those articles and monographs were printed are Scientific Reports (89 publications), PLoS ONE (68), Nature Communications (40), Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (23) and Sensors (22).

Most FP7 grants did not earmark APC funds. However, following the EU’s 2012 open access policy, the APCs became an integral part of the Horizon 2020 research grants.

Sources

OpenAire | Post Grant OA Pilot Statistics

Openaire2020 and the FP7 post grant gold OA pilot

FP7 Post Grant OA Pilot 9th progress report

Thanks for reading this article. Please comment on it and also do not forget to share it.

Related Post

covid-19, coronavirus, open access
5 Must-Reads to Understand How Open Access Can Shape Research on Covid-19

COVID-19 could kill the for-profit science publishing model. That would be a good thing. by Michael Hilrzik LA Times, March 3, 2020 “Of all the ways the current coronavirus crisis has upended commonplace routines — such as disrupting global supply chains and forcing workers to stay at home — one of the most positive is […]

Read more
november 2019, open access, must reads
Weekly Open Access Must-Reads (11-15 November 2019)

A selection of this week’s news, opinions and feature articles about open access, academia and the publishing industry.  1. Room for everyone’s talent Erkennen en waarderen in de wetenschap gaan drastisch veranderen (in Dutch) By Sicco de Knecht in Science Guide Date: 13 November 2019 Read it here in English or here in Dutch   […]

Read more
International OA week 2018: Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge

Open access has increasingly become the new norm. Countries and research funders are embracing open access. Many set targets to reach 100% open access before 2020. However, issues related to equitable sharing, diversity and inclusion is not fully addressed, according to a statement by SPARC. Open access should serve the need of all scholarly communities […]

Read more

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.