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Open Access

Make your research open - The University of Southern Denmark aims to make research available. With Open Access research can be accessed without login and payment from readers.

Open Access is a term used for research publications that are made available to readers without payment and without login. Open access covers different levels of openness and are used for publications that are free to read online as well as publications that have actual open access licenses such as Creative Commons.

Open Access is obtained in different ways:

  • Green Open Access: Publishing in conventional journals and sharing earlier versions of the articles in repositories according to the journals policies.
  • Diamond Open Access: Publish open access without fees. The journals are often supported by institutions or similar.
  • Gold Open Access: Publish in fully open access journals. Authors pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to make their article open access with an open access license, often Creative Common (CC-BY).
  • Hybrid Open Access: Publish in subscription-based journals and pay a fee to make the article open access.

In 2018, SDU adopted an open science policy, in October 2024 the Policy was renewed. 
It is set forth by SDU, but customized adaptations are in place for all departments. This means that the University is actively participating in the process of making research publications openly available through SDU’s own research database, Pure. SDU’s open access publications are also available in various search engines, SDU Library’s Search engine and Unpaywall, a service used by Web of Science among others.

Furthermore, SDU is part of The National Strategy for Open Access. The vision of this policy is that all publicly supported peer reviewed research publications should be made publicly available. 

Click these links to read the SDU Open Science policy and The National Strategy for Open Access.

  • Researchers that publish are strongly encouraged to make their publications open access.

    With green open access, researchers publish behind paywalls and use the retained author rights for early versions of the article. Because it is the journal or publisher that defines the retained rights, terms for sharing will vary.

    Each researcher should:

    • Save or obtain the peer reviewed draft version from co-authors. This version is called the accepted manuscript. 
    • Send accepted manuscript and relevant figures and tables to puresupport@bib.sdu.dk.

    Click to find a guide for green open access.

    In Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) you can find open access journals which do not require APC. Find diamond open access journals in DOAJ.
     
    Researchers at SDU or the University Hospitals in the Region of Southern Denmark can also publish open access through SDU Library’s publishing agreements for Open Access.

    If a journal is not included in an agreement researchers are not encouraged to publish open access in hybrid journals. The reason for this is that the university wishes to reduce the flow of funds to the same journals SDU Library already pays subscription fees too.
    Hybrid journals are characterized by having a mixture of articles that are behind paywall and articles that are open access.

  • Team Pure at SDU Library supports open access in the following ways: 

    • Obtains open access information about each research publication for SDU’s research registration system, Pure
    • Uploads accepted manuscripts on behalf of researchers in accordance with the applicable conditions for sharing in each case
    • Reports on open access to SDU and to departments. Reports are made to research centers when requested.

  • Open Access is monitored on national level in the Danish Open Access Indicator once a year and typically early March. The national assessment harvest publication data two years after each publication year. This means that the indicator for 2026 will show open access publication for 2024.

    In April the results of the annual assessment are made public. Shortly hereafter, SDU Library distributes the results to institute levels and sends them to the institutes together with the provisional status for the latest complete publication year which is continuously updated by SDU Library.

    The institutes receive a publication list from the year before with publications that can be made open access with an effort from the publication’s authors. This gives the department an opportunity to focus its open access effort before the final national assessment of a publication year.

For questions or guidance, please contact open-access@bib.sdu.dk

Contact Library Research Support

Open Science is more than Open Access to publications. It is about making all the processes in the academic life-cycle open so that the whole world may benefit from taxpayer-funded research. Open Science is also about open data, open peer review, open access, open education, citizen science, and much more. It is a movement which encourages researchers to engage in changing the way research is traditionally produced and presented. At the same time, it challenges the business model of the academic publishers and other members of the para-academic industry. Research has shown that researchers who publish mainly in Open Access have a citation advantage over those who do not.

Last Updated 03.02.2026