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The European Commission launches an open access pilot in FP7

In August 2008, the European Commission launched an open access pilot in FP7. Under this pilot, grant recipients in seven areas (energy, environment, health, parts of information and communication technologies, research infrastructures, science in society, and social sciences and humanities) will be required to:

• deposit peer reviewed research articles or final manuscripts resulting from their FP7 projects into an online repository;
• make their best efforts to ensure open access to these articles within either six (health, energy, environment, parts of information and communication technologies, research infrastructures) or twelve months (social sciences and humanities, science in society) after publication.

The pilot covers approximately 20% of the Commission's FP7 research programme budget, and will run until the end of FP7.

A key objective of the open access pilot is to experiment with open access as a means to ensure fast and reliable access to EU-funded research results, specifically peer reviewed research articles, in order to drive innovation, advance scientific discovery and support the development of a strong knowledge-based economy.

This open access pilot project will be supported and monitored through the research infrastructures programme of FP7

• Press release
• Open access pilot: Frequently Asked Questions
• Full text of Commission Decision on the adoption and a modification of special clauses applicable to the model grant agreement of FP7
• Commission decision
• Annex 1-Special clauses (see clause 39)

Resources for researchers

Please find enclosed below useful information to help researchers implement this open access pilot in FP7.

• Leaflet: Open access pilot in FP7
• Powerpoint presentation on open access pilot
• Model cover letter for amendment to publishing agreement
  BG CS DA DE EL EN ES ET FI FR HU IT LT LV MT NL PL PT RO SK SL SV
• Model amendment to publishing agreement
  BG CS DA DE EL EN ES ET FI FR HU IT LT LV MT NL PL PT RO SK SL SV
• Guide to Intellectual Property Rules for FP7 projects pg. 15 – 18, section 7.3
• Guidance notes on Project Reporting, see especially pg 5, 25, 32