Public Access

Funder public access requirements are related but distinct from open access.

Some funding agencies require that published research results enabled by their grants be made available to the general public, usually on the internet. See this Funder Public Access requirements page for more information and resources.

Public Access

• Refers specifically to funder mandates to make research outputs accessible to the public
• Research outputs must be placed in a specific repository

Open Access (OA)

• Publication is freely available online and often carries less restrictive copyright and licensing barriers than traditionally published works
• Publishing in an OA journal does not necessarily meet a funder’s public access policy.

Neither complying with funder public access requirements nor publishing open access necessarily requires authors to pay a fee.

• Gold Open Access publications (in which the article “version of record” is made publicly available directly in the publisher’s standard website) often do require author fees, but not always
• Many publishers routinely allow authors to make the “accepted manuscript” (post peer-review) version of the article available in a repository. This allowance enables both Green Open Access and enables authors to comply with their funder public access policies.