Open access in practice

By publishing open access you offer free, immediate, online and full-text access to your scientific information. There are different ways to achieve this. It is important to know how to find a reliable open access journal and to avoid predatory publishers.

Open access routes

There are several ways to make your publications open access:

The green route

Deposit a version of your article in the Utrecht University Repository. Read here what you need to know about the green route.

The golden route

You publish in an open access journal on a publisher's platform. This may involve publication costs, the ‘Article Processing Charges’ (APCs).

The hybrid route

You publish in a journal in which some articles are available open access, and others only by paying a subscription fee. In this case, you pay a charge to the publisher to make the article available to non-subscribers.

The diamond route

You publish in an open access journal without any charges (APCs or subscription fees). In this case, the publication costs are often borne by an institution or a fund. Read more about diamond open access here

The Open Access UU Journal Browser

The Open Access UU Journal Browser is a useful tool to find out in which journals you, as an author of Utrecht University, can publish for free or with a discount.

To the Open Access UU Journal Browser

Information on open access policies arranged by journal

SHERPA Romeo gives for each journal information on which version of your article may be made open access, the duration of embargo periods and copyright policies.

To the SHERPA Romeo database