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Horizon Europe will not reimburse publication fees for hybrid open-access

According to a working document of the European Commission (EC) of June 7, the next scientific EU's 2021-27 R&D programme (Horizon Europe) will not cover the publication fees for articles to be publised in hybrid open-access journals (those journals that are neither subscription-only nor fully open, instead offering authors both publishing options after paying the article processing charges (APCs) for open-acess).
 
By doing this, the EC takes an important turn in its policy and will favor purely open-access journals and repositories (pre-prints) as the mean to comply with its open access mandate.

This decision is related with the exorbitant prices of the open-access publication fees offered by hybrid journals (which can often exceed 4,000 euros per article) and is justified by the lack of real commitment of these journals to make a real transition to an international open-acess publishing model.

This decision is still subject to approval by the European Parliament and national governments. This proposal applies only to Horizon Europe, and researchers will be able to publish in the open-access option of hybrid journals if the charges are covered by another funding source. 

All in all, a quite controversial decision. What do you think?

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28 June 2018
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