Plan S / NCN Policy
Plan S is a set of guidelines for open access to scholarly publications. It was developed by cOAlition S, an initiative of research funding agencies and foundations supported by the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC).
The Plan S Principles:
Authors or their institutions retain copyright to their publications. All publications must be published under an open license, preferably the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY), in order to fulfil the requirements defined by the Berlin Declaration.
The Funders will develop robust criteria and requirements for the services that high-quality Open Access journals, Open Access platforms, and Open Access repositories must provide.
In cases where high-quality Open Access journals or platforms do not yet exist, the Funders will, in a coordinated way, provide incentives to establish and support them when appropriate; support will also be provided for Open Access infrastructures where necessary.
Where applicable, Open Access publication fees are covered by the Funders or research institutions, not by individual researchers; it is acknowledged that all researchers should be able to publish their work Open Access.
The Funders support the diversity of business models for Open Access journals and platforms. When Open Access publication fees are applied, they must be commensurate with the publication services delivered and the structure of such fees must be transparent to inform the market and facilitate the potential standardisation and capping of payments of fees.
The Funders encourage governments, universities, research organisations, libraries, academies, and learned societies to align their strategies, policies, and practices, notably to ensure transparency.
The above principles shall apply to all types of scholarly publications, but it is understood that the timeline to achieve Open Access for monographs and book chapters will be longer and requires a separate due process.
The Funders do not support the ‘hybrid’ model of publishing. However, as a transitional pathway towards full Open Access within a clearly defined timeframe, and only as part of transformative arrangements, Funders may contribute to financially supporting such arrangements.
The Funders will monitor compliance and sanction non-compliant beneficiaries/grantees.
The Funders commit that when assessing research outputs during funding decisions they will value the intrinsic merit of the work and not consider the publication channel, its impact factor (or other journal metrics), or the publisher.
Plan S – original document in English (on cOAlition S website)
NCN Policy
The Polish document that applies on behalf of NCN is – NCN Policy on Open Access
Documents:
– Open access publication policy for research results representing the outcomes of research projects, internships, research fellowships, scientific activities and research components (June 2025)
– Letter on softening provisions on “National Science Centre’s open access policy” ( October 2023)
– National Science Centre’s open access policy (2020)
Key issue of open access pathways in NCN policy
AAM (Author Accepted Manuscript) – is the final author-created version of the manuscript, which includes any changes made after peer-review and has been accepted for publication by the journal.
APC (Article Processing Charges) – are charged to authors of scholarly articles during the publication process.
VoR (Version of Record) – is the version that has been published in a journal, in print and/or online.
| Path 1 | Path 2 | Path 3 | |
| Journal type | Full-open access (diamond and gold access) | Subscription/hybrid | Covered by a license agreement – information |
| Type of manuscript provided | Article published on the journal’s website (VoR) | Manuscript published in closed access on the journal’s website, optional free access to AAM/preprint in the repository | Article published on the journal’s website (VoR) |
| Required licenses | All CC 4.0 licences are accepted, CC BY 4.0 preferred | All CC 4.0 licences are accepted, CC BY 4.0 preferred | All CC 4.0 licences are accepted, CC BY 4.0 preferred |
| Eligible publishing costs | APC cost is eligible | APC cost is eligible however NCN does not recommend paying APC for work published under Path 2, i.e. in subscription or hybrid journals where the AAM version or preprint can be made freely available in the repository | APC paid under the licensing agreement |
| Additional conditions | The journal must be registered or in the process of being registered with DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals). | The repository where the preprint and AAM/VoR will be placed must be registered with openDOAR | Journals covered by Polish transformation agreements available on the Virtual Library of Science website |
Where to check if a journal complies with the requirements of Plan S?
- Journal Checker Tool – a tool to check the compliance of scientific journals and publishing platforms with Plan S.
- Jisc’s open policy finder – is a free service, which allowed you to check the journal’s policy according to copyright and open access
Please note
If you want to check a full publishing policy, please visit the website of the selected journal, to be sure, that its policy meets Plan S requirements.
Where can I deposit a preprint or AAM according to path 2? Example repositories
arXiv is an electronic archive of scientific preprints. It collects articles in the following fields: physics, mathematics, computer science, biology and quantitative finance, statistics, electrical and systems science, and economics.
The repository is indexed in OpenDOAR and provides a DOI identifier. Papers published in arXiv are not peer-reviewed, but can only be uploaded by registered and trusted authors.
Figashare is a multipurpose open repository where individual researchers can store and share their research results for free. The platform does not impose restrictions on the form of published material, so this can include datasets, graphs, codes, images, video files, presentations and text documents (publications, preprints, chapters from monographs, etc.).
Figshare is indexed in OpenDOAR and guarantees a DOI number for each published dataset or file. Furthermore, the repository allows a CC0 or CC BY licence to be assigned to material posted on the platform.
EconStor is an open repository for the publication of economic literature in which academics can self-deposit their achievements. The repository is operated as a non-commercial public service by ZBW – Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft.
EconStor repository is indexed in OpenDOAR, provides a DOI identifier and allows for Creative Commons licensing. Introductory video.
Zenodo is an open, interdisciplinary repository created in collaboration between OpenAIRE and CERN. The repository allows researchers to deposit scientific articles, datasets, research software, reports and other materials resulting from their research for free. Zenodo is a good solution for researchers who cannot find a suitable discipline repository for their research or when their institution does not have its own repository.
Zenodo is indexed in OpenDOAR, guarantees a unique DOI number for deposited material and allows for the attribution of a Creative Commons licence.