NCN open access policy requirements

Attention

New Open Access rules at NCN – greater flexibility, same idea

https://www.ncn.gov.pl/aktualnosci/2025-06-26-nowe-zasady-open-access-w-ncn

The National Science Center is moving away from the requirement to publish exclusively in open access, while continuing to recommend open sharing of research results.

  • From June 26, 2025, reports will also be able to include articles published in the traditional, so-called closed model. The new rules will apply to both new competitions to be announced in September (based on NCN Director’s Order No. 39/2025) and ongoing projects (based on the director’s letter of June 26, 2025). – If the manager of a project currently in progress has not been able to include a publication in the report being prepared because it did not meet the OA requirements, they will now be able to add it to the list.
  • The amended regulations apply to projects funded by NCN national competitions. The rules may differ in international competitions.
  • However, the NCN is not withdrawing its support for the idea of openness. Pathways that facilitate open access will continue to be promoted. In particular, it is recommended to use so-called green open access, i.e., depositing manuscript versions in recognized subject or institutional repositories, in accordance with the publisher’s policy and applicable regulations.
  • The NCN will continue to monitor how many publications from projects funded by the Center are published in open access and according to which path, based on information reported in the OSF.
  • The obligation to make research data available also remains unchanged, even if publications are not available in open access. Data related to publications must be made available in accordance with FAIR principles – in open and reliable repositories. The agency also announces that it will monitor the effects of the new policy.

Documents concerning the NCN’s new approach to open access:

NCN requirements regarding open access policy valid until June 26, 2025

Order No. 38/2020 of the Director of the National Science Centre of 27.05.2020. – The Policy of the National Science Centre on Open Access to Publications Resulting from Research Projects, Research Fellowships and Internships and Scientific Activities Funded or Co-Financed by the National Science Centre (hereinafter: ‘the Policy’) was established.

The Policy applies to research projects, research fellowships, internships and scientific activities selected for funding from competitions announced on 16 June 2020, for which implementation and funding agreements will be signed after 1 January 2021.
The policy does not cover the publication rules for monographs, monograph chapters and peer-reviewed collected works.
https://www.ncn.gov.pl/sites/default/files/pliki/zarzadzenia-dyrektora/zarzadzenieDyr-38_2020.pdf

  • The project must result in the publication in an internationally peer-reviewed publication.

All publications (including Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or Version of Record (VoR)), with the exception of monographs, monograph chapters and peer-reviewed collected works, resulting from the project must be available under a CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution) open access licence, alternatively in the case of journals covered by a CC BY-SA (Creative Commons Attribution – Under the same conditions) transformational agreement or equivalent and have a unique permanent identifier (e.g. DOI (preferred), URN or Handle).
The concept of open access applies to making publicly funded scientific publications and research results available in digital form online.
In addition, the data underlying scientific publications resulting from a research project should be reliably documented in a way that meets the FAIR Data principles. They should also be made available in a repository, where possible, under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain licence (CC0 licence).

  • Costs related to open access publishing must be planned and incurred from indirect costs, i.e. under the special category of open access (OA) indirect costs, which are calculated as 2% of direct costs. Open access publishing costs can also be covered under indirect overheads. The limit of funds for the open access category cannot be increased beyond the limit of 2% of direct costs. Alternatively, additional funding for open access may be allocated from indirect costs (20% of direct costs).
  • If the applicant is a group of entities in the application in the ZSUN/OSF system, separate cost estimates are created for the leader and each of the partners, on the basis of which the open access costs should be calculated separately for each entity. It should be remembered that after summing up, these costs cannot be higher than 2% of total direct costs.
  • Publications shall be attached to the report by providing a link to a permanent place of deposit of the full version of the publication and providing direct access to it during the review and evaluation of the report and during the evaluation of subsequent research project applications submitted.