Image: Images Money [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr
Researchers can also use scheme to check journal compliance with funder’s open-access policies
The Swiss National Science Foundation has launched a pilot version of a scheme to enable researchers to easily pay the article-processing charges that publishers often require to make academic papers available with open access.
The tool, announced on 15 June, is being made available through a partnership with a platform called ChronosHub to help researchers meet the SNSF’s requirement that the work it funds should be made openly available.
“Thanks to access to ChronosHub, we are taking an important step on the road to 100 per cent open access,” said SNSF president Matthias Egger. “This will further reduce the effort involved for researchers.”
Researchers publishing in fully open-access journals will be able to publish their articles through ChronosHub, according to the SNSF. The foundation said the payment of article-processing charges will be arranged directly, without researchers having to submit an application to it.
The SNSF will not cover any article fees for papers published in ‘hybrid’ journals containing a mixture of open-access and paywalled content.
Researchers will also be able to use ChronosHub’s ‘Journal Finder’ search engine to find out whether more than 40,000 journals meet the SNSF’s open-access requirements.
“We encourage everyone to use the platform and give us feedback on the services,” said Claudia Lautenschütz, who is leading the initiative. “This will help us to evaluate the pilot project.”