Open Access

ETH Zurich aims at disseminating research results produced at the university as widely as possible based on the principle of Open Access.

In order to lend weight to this endeavour, it signed the external page Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in March 2006.

ETH Zurich's open-access policy

On 1 February 2018, the Executive Board put into force a revised open access policy for the university, replacing the former policy that came into force in July 2008. The policy calls upon all of ETH Zurich's scientists to play an active role in implementing open access.

The essence of the open-access policy:

Supporting the golden road

ETH Zurich encourages researchers to publish their results in suitable open access journals. It also provides funding for the costs incurred.

Moreover, it welcomes the critical involvement of researchers in relevant quality control and editorial boards for open access journals.

Commitment to the green road

ETH Zurich urges its researchers to publish their research papers, dissertations, habilitations and any other research results for free access via the repository Research Collection, provided this is not opposed by any legal restrictions (further information on legal aspects regarding self-archiving).

Authors' rights

ETH Zurich asks authors, wherever possible, to avoid granting exclusive usage rights to the publishing houses and to reserve the simple usage right to make their works publicly accessible.

The ETH Library as a competence centre for open access

The ETH Library advises ETH Zurich researchers regarding open access, supports them in their publishing activities and is responsible for running the open access repository Research Collection. It conducts negotiations with the publishing houses and gathers data on the extent to which open access is implemented at ETH Zurich.