What information is available?
Open access to publications refers to the possibility to freely access research publications. These are divided into:
- Gold Open Access: research outputs that are publications in an open access journal,
- Green Open Access: research outputs that are publications in a journal that are also available in an open access repository,
- Hybrid Open Access: research outputs that are publications in a subscription journal that are open access with a clear license,
- Bronze Open Access: research outputs that are published in a subscription journal that are open access without a license.
On this page you will find indicators on how the policies of journals and funding agencies favour open access, and the percentage of publications (gold, green, hybrid and bronze) actually available through open access.
The indicators cover bibliometric data on publications, as well as data on funders' and journals' policies. Indicators and case studies will be updated over time.
You can download the chart and its data through the dedicated menu within each chart (top right of the image).
For more information, see the methodology report.
Open access to publications
This data, gathered through the analysis of Scopus data and Unpaywall data, shows the percentage of open access publications by year, country and discipline.
You can click on the buttons below the chart to select the data to display.
Note: OA publications counts all open access publications regardless of type (gold, green, bronze, hybrid) only once (which excludes double counting of publications). The gold, green, bronze and hybrid publications count the maximum number of publications available for each category considered. As overlapping of publications in both categories often occurs, any summarising of these two types will include double counting of publications.
Altmetrics
The presence of open access publications in social media is capture through a set of indicators that focus on mentions to scientific publication in tweets, blogs and news media as recorded by PlumX. It also includes a trend of readership of publications based on the saving patterns of publications in the online reference manager Mendeley.
For more information on the indicators, see the updated list of open access and social media indicators.
Note: OA publications counts all open access publications regardless of type (gold, green, bronze, hybrid) only once (which excludes double counting of publications). The gold, green, bronze and hybrid publications count the maximum number of publications available for each category considered. As overlapping of publications in both categories often occurs, any summarising of these two types will include double counting of publications.
Funders' policies
This indicator presents the types of mandates established by research funders concerning open access publication and archiving, as displayed in the Sherpa Juliet database. The pie chart represents total data.
Research journal policies
This indicator presents the types of mandates established by research funders journals concerning open access archiving policies, as displayed in the Sherpa Romeo database. The pie chart represents total data.
Additional indicators
There are many other indicators to monitor open access, such as:
- Number of preprints
- Articles published before peer review
- Surveys on attitudes of researchers towards Open Access by 101 innovations, Taylor and Francis, and Nature Publishing Group
Case studies
You can find here a set of detailed case studies available for download, that will be updated in the course of the study and more case studies will be added in the future.