Participating in open access
The open access movement is committed to making academic publications and knowledge a common good for humanity.
For the past 25 years, the open access movement has been fighting against the privatization of knowledge by a small number of major academic publishers.
How to get involved
The success of the open access movement depends on the involvement of those in the research community (researchers, institutions, funding bodies and publishers). For researchers, there are two possibilities.
Gold open access
By publishing in a fully open access journal whose funding model does not rely on author contributions. Unfortunately, this option has been hijacked by publishers, which make authors pay excessive article processing charges (APCs).
Watch out for hybrid journals
Green open access
By depositing your publications in an institutional or thematic repository known as an open archive. This is also known as self-archiving.
Various formats are possible: the author accepted manuscript (postprint), the version of record (published version), and the author's original version or preprint (before peer review).
Identifying open archives
Gold open access Watch out for hybrid journals
Some subscription-based journals offer authors the option of making their article available free of charge subject to payment of an APC (a model known as Open Choice, Online Open, etc., depending on the publisher). This model should be avoided at all costs because the journal is only available behind a paywall, so institutions are effectively paying twice to access content. In 2019, this model will no longer be covered by funding bodies.
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) lists all fully open access journals.
Green open access: Identifying open archives
The Institut Pasteur open archive
de l’Institut Pasteur
The open archive of the Institut Pasteur International Network
Find an open archive using OpenDOAR