The CERN Open Access Policy in its current revision is effective as of 25 May 2021. The Policy requires CERN Authors to publish all original results open access. Contributions to conference proceedings are not covered by this Policy.

Authors should chose the most appropriate outlet for their research. When there are several options, CERN Authors should give preference to SCOAP3 titles or titles for which CERN has arrangements, so-called “read and publish agreements”.

Authors can use the CERN Open Access Author guide to find the best outlet for their articles. 

“Read and publish agreements", often called transformative agreements, seek to shift the contracted payment from libraries to publishers away from subscription-based reading and towards open access publishing. If the corresponding author is affiliated with CERN, articles will be automatically detected and published open access for journals published by AIP, APS, Elsevier, IEEE, IOP, Springer Nature and Wiley. To verify if your co-authors benefit from “Read and publish agreements”, please consult the individual lists of institutions via the publishers’ respective websites: Elsevier, IEEE, IOP, Springer Nature and Wiley.

CERN-affiliated authors are intended as Staff, Fellows, and those collaborators authorized by their respective Department Heads to use the CERN affiliation, e.g. some scientific visitors, under certain conditions.

A CERN author is any author who, at the time the work described was carried out, as defined in CERN Operational Circular 6, is/was:

 a) Staff member or Fellow (Staff Rules, Article I 2.02 a), not on special leave (Staff Regulations, Article R II 4.29); or,

 b) an Associated member of the personnel (Staff Rules, Article I 2.02 b) allowed by their Division Leader (i.e. Department Head) to use CERN as their affiliation on the document.

The corresponding author is the author responsible for the submission and handling of the manuscript and for all related correspondence during the publication process. The corresponding author has authority to act on behalf of all co-authors in all matters pertaining to the publication of the manuscript and acts as the point of contact for any inquiries relating to the paper.

If the corresponding author is not a CERN Author and he/she is not covered by a “Read and publish agreement” via his/her institution, the CERN Author should contact @email prior to submission.

Here is detailed information of our arrangements with publishers.

You can consult the details of the Author journey for some publishers.

For papers originating from large collaborations, the copyright is vested in CERN. For all other papers, the copyright remains with the authors.

CC-BY license is the preferred license.

Articles covered under the CERN agreements with publishers are paid centrally by CERN (conference contributions or invited articles excluded).

For articles that are not covered by a CERN agreement, CERN authors can still be eligible for central open access funding based on the following principles. 

• The article is not already covered through an agreement of any of the co-author affiliated institutions, or via an EC grant.
• Authors contact the Scientific Information Service in advance of submission to ensure central payment from the CERN Open Access fund.
• Articles submitted to journals with exceptionally high APCs (i.e. in excess of CHF 4000) will not be funded by CERN.
• For special issues coordinated or authored by CERN resulting in high publishing costs for CERN, editors of such special issues should submit a specific justification and request for approval before organising such issues.  

If you publish in a journal that is not part of one of the CERN-wide open access agreements to or if you are not the corresponding author, please contact @email before proceeding with the license and rights process.

Some journals request page charges when a manuscript exceeds the standard length or has colour figures. All such charges are carried by the group/department of the author. The Scientific Information Service can only cover author processing charges (APC) for open access.

Contact @email, we ensure a quick answer.