Introducing Rights Retention Strategy FAQ

Starting from 2021, cOAlitionS funders such as NWO and European Commission (Horizon Europe) require immediate Open Access with a CC-BY license to all peer-reviewed scholarly publications. To meet those requirements, researchers have 3 options: to use one of the national Read & Publish agreements, publish in an Open Access venue and pay from the grant budget or make use of the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) – a Plan S compliant Green Open Access route.

RRS allows authors to share their work in the final author's version (Author Accepted Manuscript) immediately and under a CC BY license, even if the publisher places restrictions on this. To do this, researchers must indicate to the publisher upon submission of publication that they are bound by a "previous contract" from a funder.

RRS has been widely used by Wellcome Trust and embedded within UK universities. The Netherlands, too, made a step further in supporting researchers and in 2022, UNL has agreed to warrant legal and financial support for authors who provide Open Access to their PlanS-funded publications with the use of the RRS. This means that Dutch researchers that cannot make use of the Gold Open Access option or a Read & Publish agreement, can use the RRS route while having support on the national level.

UKB Working Group Open Access has developed a guiding FAQ with the aim to support researchers at Dutch universities complying with the Open Access requirements of PlanS and willing to make use of the RRS.

Download the FAQ here.