＊Japanese version is here→ “学術論文等の即時オープンアクセス義務化について“
Based on “National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data” (decided by the Integrated Innovation Strategy Promotion Council on February 16, 2024), the relevant ministries and agencies (including the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) agreed on specific measures for implementing the policy on February 21, 2024 (revised on October 8, 2024). As a result, the national policy has clarified the scope of the immediate open access requirement, how it is made public, and how to handle scholarly publications and scientific data for which immediate Open Access is difficult. Here we explain the requirements of each of these items and how they will be implemented by Saitama University.
Reference Documents（Links to the Cabinet Office website; Japanese only）
The immediate open access requirement applies to research outputs from projects funded under the following competitive research funding programs for which applications open in FY2025 or later. Projects are not subject to the requirement if applications for the funding were opened in FY2024 or earlier, even if funding begins in FY2025.
| Funding Agency | Program |
|---|---|
| Japan Society for the Promotion of Science | Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research |
| Japan Science and Technology Agency | Strategic Basic Research Programs (Excluding the Advanced Technologies for Carbon-Neutral (ALCA-Next) program and the Cutting-edge Research and Development on Information & Communication Sciences (CRONOS) program) |
| Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development | Strategic Basic Research Programs (Advanced Research & Development Programs for Medical Innovation) |
| Japan Science and Technology Agency | Fusion Oriented Research for Disruptive Science and Technology |
Research outputs subject to immediate open access are as below:
Please note that the requirement applies only to scientific data that are published together with scholarly publications.
Depositing in an Institutional Repository (Green OA)
As stipulated in the Measures for the Implementation of the National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data “if an institutional repository is available at the institution to which the researcher belongs, research outputs should, in principle, be made publicly available through that institutional repository,” researchers affiliated with our university can satisfy this requirement by depositing scholarly publications and scientific data in the Saitama University Cyber Repository of Academic Resources (SUCRA). In this case, the version to be deposited is the one that the publisher permits to be made publicly available, which in most cases is the author’s accepted manuscript.
Please note that if your scholarly publications and supporting research data are searchable through NII RDC (via its search platform, CiNii Research）, this is regarded as equivalent to having deposited them in an institutional repository, and the requirement is considered to have been fulfilled （CiNii Research Incorporated Databases）。
Open Access Publication (Gold OA)
When a scholarly publication is published as an Open Access article in a publisher’s electronic journal, the requirement is fulfilled by listing the identifiers for the scholarly publication and its supporting research data (generally DOIs) in the project report submitted to the funding agency.
Open Access publication in electronic journals generally requires authors to pay a substantial Article Processing Charge (APC), typically amounting to several hundred thousand yen. Saitama University strives to reduce this financial burden by promoting and maintaining transformative agreements, which include Open Access publishing rights as part of the University’s electronic journal subscription agreements. In addition, APC discounts are available for certain journals through the University’s subscription agreements. For details, please see the following pages:
As a general rule, “immediate” in Immediate Open Access means that there is no embargo period from the time a scholarly publication and its supporting research data are published in an academic journal. If an article is made available online before being assigned to a specific volume or issue, the online publication date is regarded as the publication date. When research outputs are made publicly available through an institutional repository or similar platform, a processing period of approximately three months is permitted to complete the necessary procedures.
However, publishers commonly impose embargo periods, typically ranging from several months to two years, as a condition for allowing articles published in subscription-based electronic journals to be made publicly available through institutional repositories. Consequently, in practice, it is often difficult to satisfy the above “immediate” requirement when making research outputs publicly available through an institutional repository.
Accordingly, under the agreement among the relevant ministries and agencies, funding agencies will provide the following options in their research reporting systems:
Accordingly, the existence of an embargo does not, in itself, constitute a violation of the Immediate Open Access requirement.
Once the reason preventing Immediate Open Access no longer applies, research outputs should be made available through Open Access without delay. SUCRA includes a scheduled publication function that allows research outputs to be deposited during the embargo period and automatically be made publicly available once the embargo expires. We encourage researchers to make use of this feature.
The University Library supports Open Access publishing of research outputs produced at Saitama University. If you have any questions or would like advice, please contact the staff responsible for “機関リポジトリ（SUCRA）” or “OA出版等” on the Contact Information 問い合わせ先” page.
