Self-archiving and Repositories

Repositories are one of the main delivery routes and one of the complementary strategies to achieve open access initially identified in the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Repositories are digital archives designed to collect, organize, and preserve research output, enabling its dissemination and reuse through compliance with interoperability standards. These may include a variety of materials, like peer-reviewed publications, preprints, datasets, and grey literature, among others.

There are several types of repositories, including disciplinary/subject repositories (which preserve and organize materials within a specific field) and institutional repositories (which capture and showcase the research produced by a particular institution). Other types of repositories include generalist or centralized repositories, like Zenodo. Repositories may also be aggregated, like the Netherlands Research Portal, resulting in a federated system that collects and disseminates scholarly content harvested from other repositories. National and regional networks of repositories are also increasingly expanding, like OpenAIRE in Europe and LA Referencia, in Latin America.

Many academic institutions that support open access archive their researchers’ publications in online repositories that are freely accessible worldwide and easy to find online. The publication of academic information in these online databases is called the ‘green route to open access; another term is self-archiving. All Dutch universities, most of the Universities of Applied Sciences, and other research institutes have their own institutional repository. 

Netherlands Research Portal, the national portal for scholarly information

In the Netherlands Research Portal on OpenAIRE CONNECT, the national scholarly portal, you can consult all the Dutch repositories in one go. The research publications of HBO Knowledge Bank can also be found via this portal. 

Submitting your publication to the repository

Nowadays, most Dutch universities will automatically archive affiliated researchers' publications in their repository, although it may be necessary for you to register the publication in your institution's research output registration system. For more information, get in touch with the contact person at your university or research institute. For HBO Knowledge Base there is more information on the website.

Self-archiving allows authors to upload copies of their work to repositories, making research more accessible. Many publishers allow self-archiving, but they often impose specific conditions, such as embargo periods or restrictions on which version of the manuscript can be shared. Some publishers allow authors to upload the peer-reviewed version after a certain waiting period, while others only allow the preprint version. However, some publishers may still prohibit self-archiving altogether, and authors may need to negotiate permissions or seek individual agreements.

Many universities and research organizations require or encourage researchers to make their work publicly accessible through repositories to meet open access mandates and institutional policies. Authors must be aware of copyright policies and publisher rules, which can vary widely. To track and check publishers copyright and self-archiving policies, there are some tools available, like JISC Open Policy Finder (formerly Sherpa Romeo). It serves as a comprehensive resource, providing information on publishers' policies for self-archiving journal articles in digital repositories and other online platforms.

The Dutch copyright law has enshrined certain open access rights that always take precedent over the publisher's self-archiving policies. This means that authors affiliated with Dutch universities are always allowed to make their work available through a repository six months after publication, the so-called Taverne regulation. For more information on Taverne, check our dedicated webpage.

The Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) was initially developed by cOAlition S to support researchers to comply with their funder's policy, by allowing authors to publish in subscription journals while retaining the copyright to all versions of their work apart from the final published one. RRS enables authors to deposit a copy of the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM, also referred to as post-print) in a trusted repository, under a Creative Commons license, without embargo. 

If you want to make use of RRS, you should indicate so as soon as you first submit your article, by appending a 'Rights Retention Statement' to your submission. It is highly recommended that authors that are funded by a cOAlition S funder, like NWO or European Commission, always include the RRS statement in their submission, even if you plan to publish in a journal covered by a publisher deal. If the deal is not renewed, or the maximum number of articles is reached, RRS enables you to still comply with the open access policies of your funder even if the article's published version ends up behind a paywall.

There are standard versions of such RRS statements available. They highlight the fact that you are bound by a previous contract with your funder, under which you are obliged to make your AAM openly available. Researchers in the Netherlands who are funded by either NWO or ERC can refer to this FAQ for details about the procedure as well as copy-pastable RRS statements they can use. You can include the statement in your manuscript, cover letter or acknowledgements.

Additionally, a Journal Checker Tool has been developed to help researchers confirm which journal options are supported by their funder's open access policy, recommending a route based on the author’s journal of interest and funder requirements.