Scientific Publication: Policy on Open Access

According to Act 3/2003 with later amendments (149/2012) all scientific publications based on projects, funded entirely or partially by Rannís must be published in open access unless otherwise agreed upon. This is to ensure that the public has access to results of publicly funded scientific projects in Iceland. Rannís mandate on open access extends to all peer-reviewed articles.  Books, book chapters and student theses are exempted from the rule.  Projects that have received grants from Rannís prior to January 2013 are not subject to the requirement of open access publishing, even though Rannís encourages all researchers to publish in open access.

Open access (OA) of science publications entails that published articles are available electronically on the Internet, free of charge to users and with minimal restrictions on use. There are two main types of open access publishing. The authors publish their articles either directly in open-access online journals or they deposit a post-print version of the articles in an open-access archive. 

It is possible to publish results in open repositories parallel to a publication in traditional closed subscription journals. In 2016, a digital repository for Icelandic universities was opened: Opin Vísindi ( www.opinvisindi.is ).

Rannís rules for OA are as follows:

Rannís encourages scientists to publish their works in journals that are fully released for public access, that is provides immediate OA to all their articles. An open access journal may charge a processing fee. Some traditional subscription journals allow publication of individual articles in open access against OA publishing fee. Plans are being made for grantees to be able to apply for funding to cover part of the publication cost.

If a decision is made to publish research findings in journals that are not open access, the Rannís OA mandate may be met by publishing in open searchable, digital repositories along with the publication in a traditional subscription journal. The final manuscript after peer review shall be submitted to the repository immediately after the article has been accepted for publication. This applies even if the journal demands a waiting period prior to OA, the article will then be opened automatically when the waiting period expires. In cases where the publisher does not allow parallel publishing within six months after publishing in the journal, the authors shall claim an exemption. Rannís allows a waiting period for up to 12 months.