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

Requirements in the calls opened after 1 January 2021 

Changes to the open access publishing requirements in Research Council of Finland projects

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 in Aalto University)
   • Personal websites and databases, publisher websites, as well as cloud storage services, Academia.edu, ResearchGate etc. are not considered 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 CC BY license
2. Publish article open access in a subscription journal under CC BY license by utilizing 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   • Peer-reviewed articles produced in RCF-funded projects may not be published using the so-called hybrid model, where individual articles published in subscription journals are made open access on payment.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. Self-archive author accepted manuscript (AAM) open access in a trusted repository (ACRIS in Aalto University) under CC BY license
   • Embargoes are allowed in self-archiving, if the publisher refuses immediate self-archiving
     • Humanities and social sciences: 12 months
     • Other fields: 6 months
   • Please note that currently only few publishers allow CC BY license for author accepted manuscripts (AAMs).

Open access publishing fees (APC fees)

• Costs of scientific publications published in open access journals can be covered by basic funding / included in the overheads of sites of research.
• Aalto's open access agreements may cover the open access fees.
  • Apart from open access agreements, Aalto University does not have a central open access fund. If you publish in a journal which is not covered by our agreements, please contact your department controller for assistance.

Please note

• Authors are always encouraged to check publishers’ open access options before submitting their papers.
• Use the to search for journals compliant with Research Council of Finland open access mandate.
• Please contact Open Science and ACRIS team at acris@aalto.fi for guidance and help.

Requirements in the 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 publishing 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.

• 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.

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)