"Research Output Immediate Open Access Mandate"
Document: "THERS KAKENHI Call Briefing Materials for FY2026 (Revised July 2025)"
Video: "[In Japanese] FY2026 KAKENHI Call Briefing" * The section on the mandatory immediate open access requirement begins around 1:15
Immediate Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data
Policy Document
In Japan, the promotion of open science is emphasized in government policies and the plans of research funding agencies, and the national policy for implementation of immediate open access has been indicated.
Representative documents include the following:
- National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data (Decided by the Integrated Innovation Strategy Promotion Council, February 16, 2024) (Cabinet Office)
- Measures for the Implementation of "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) (Agreements of the relevant ministries and agencies, Revised on October 8, 2024) (Cabinet Office)
- [In Japanese] FAQ on National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data and Measures for the Implementation of "National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data" (Updated October 8, 2024) (Cabinet Office)
Scope
Immediate open access is applied to scholarly publications and scientific data by the applicable competitive research funds.
- Peer-reviewed scholarly publications: The peer-reviewed scholarly publications are those which are published in electronic journals, including author accepted manuscript.
- Scientific data: The scientific data are research data that are required to be published from the viewpoint of ensuring transparency and reproducibility in the writing guidelines and publication regulations of electronic journals in which the scholarly publication is published.
The public funds covered are as follows:
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS): Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
- Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST): Fusion Oriented Research for disruptive Science and Technology, and Strategic Basic Research Programs (excluding some parts)
- Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED): Strategic Basic Research Programs
Ways to Make Works Open Access
The main methods to make research outputs immediately open access are as follows.
- Gold OA (published in open access journals)
- Green OA (published in institutional repositories, etc.)
This is a method of submitting to a journal that publishes OA papers and paying an APC (article processing charge) to make the article open access.
For OA Publishing Agreements and Discounts at Nagoya University, please see Nagoya University Open Access Publishing Support.
This is a method of registering and making available the publisher's version or the author's final manuscript (postprint) in your institution's repository or an appropriate open repository. Under the national policy, it is a principle that scholarly publications and supporting data are posted in the affiliated institution's repository.
Nagoya University provides the Repository for your use. Registration is free.
* Some publishers may impose an embargo (a period of publication restriction). The library will check the NAGOYA Repository registration requirements set forth by the publisher.
Checklist for Making Articles Open Access
Please check all of the following requirements when your authored article is to be made open access:
- The article does not infringe on another person's privacy without his/her consent;
- The article does not defy research ethics or contain plagiarized material;
- Confirm permission from other copyright holders (publisher*, co-authors etc.) has been obtained;
- Confirm permission to use a material that is copyrighted by others (charts, photos, data, etc.) has been obtained;
- Confirm permission to make outputs open access if the research is conducted under contracts with other parties;
- The article does not prevent the acquisition of patent or utility model rights; and
- If it is scheduled to be published as a book (compilation of multiple articles and book revisions included), consultation with the publisher on making the output open access is required.
FAQ
What duration does "immediate" refer to?
According to the Measures for the Implementation of "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 term "immediate" of "immediate open access" in the National Policy means that there is no period of prohibition (embargo) after publication of a scholarly publication and scientific data funded by the relevant competitive research funds in academic journals. However, it is desirable to publish the publication in information infrastructures such as institutional repositories within about three months after publication in an academic journal."
If the regulations of a scholarly journal that publishes peer-reviewed articles and supporting data do not allow immediate posting to institutional repositories or other information infrastructures after publication, what should be done?
According to the Measures for the Implementation of "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), "RECIPIENTS shall make the utmost effort to implement immediate open access when disseminating research outputs. However, if it is difficult for RECIPIENTS to implement immediate open access, they shall report the reasons for the difficulty at the time of each annual research report through systems developed by the relevant ministries and funding agencies. In addition, if the reasons for the difficulty in implementing immediate open access is resolved, RECIPIENTS shall promptly publish their scholarly publications and scientific data in information infrastructures such as institutional repositories."
The publisher is the copyright holder of my article and I have not paid money (APC or open access fees) to the publisher. Can I make my article open access via NAGOYA Repository?
Authors may transfer copyright to publishers (academic societies or commercial publishers) under the submission rules or through copyright transfer agreements. Many publishers conditionally allow authors to register their work in their institutional repositories in the copyright transfer agreement or submission rules. Many publishers allow authors to register their work in repositories if it is the author's final manuscript several months to several years after publication. Please consult your library if registration conditions are unclear, as conditions vary by publisher.
If a paper is made available on a lab's website under immediate open access requirements, can that be considered "open access"?
According to National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data (Decided by the Integrated Innovation Strategy Promotion Council, February 16, 2024), "Information infrastructures such as institutional repositories mean those of which scholarly publications and scientific data can be searched on the research data infrastructure system (NII Research Data Cloud). " When they have published their scholarly publications and scientific data on platforms where they cannot be searched on the NII RDC, such as a laboratory website, they should list the identifier (DOI or another PID (Persistent Identifier)) of their outputs in the annual research report to the funding agency.
Does Nagoya University offer any discounts or subsidies for OA journal submission fees or for the cost of converting articles to OA (APC)?
If the author is a faculty member at Nagoya University, he/she can take advantage of discounts by the publisher or Nagoya University grants for many journals. More information is here.
What is the author's final manuscript?
The author's final manuscript is a manuscript after peer review, and it includes changes suggested by the referee. It does not include copy-editing, formatting, etc. by the editor. Generally, proof file is considered to be after copy-edited and is not available for repository registration. If the final manuscript is a word file or image file, the library will convert it to PDF for registration.
Please tell me the scope of the underlying data.
According to the Measures for the Implementation of "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 scientific data refers to the "research data for the published scholarly publications that are required to be published from the viewpoint of ensuring transparency and reproducibility in the writing guidelines and publication regulations of electronic journals in which the scholarly publication is published" specified in the National Policy, which are the data on the premise of publication, such as supplemental data. And the scientific data do not include data that is not on the premise of publication, such as data required in the process of peer review."
Contact
Electronic Resources Section (Open Science), Information Control Division
Nagoya University Library
lib-os::t.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp (convert :: to @)