Implementing the rights retention strategy for scientific publications
Guide for researchers
December 2022 for the English version
The rights retention strategy is a tool for researchers to retain sufficient rights on their scientific articles so that they can make them available in immediate open access, regardless of the distribution model of the journal in which they are published. This strategy allows the unrestricted dissemination of knowledge within the scientific community and beyond.
It represents a new approach for researchers. The French Committee for Open Science hopes that this guide will help you to apply the rights retention strategy. It provides practical suggestions for that purpose, and solutions to overcome any difficulties you may encounter.
What is the rights retention strategy?
The rights retention strategy is a way for researchers to retain sufficient rights to their scientific publications so these can be made available in immediate open access regardless of the dissemination model of the journal they are published in. It helps ensure that knowledge circulates rapidly and without obstacles within the scientific community and further afield.
How does this work?
Authors who cover their manuscripts with an open licence like Creative Commons thus retain the right to share them immediately on an open archive. Adding an open licence to a document is simple and purely declarative – authors just need to add a sentence to their manuscript before submitting to a scientific journal.
How should an open licence be applied?
Here is a typical formulation which can be added in the Acknowledgements section of an article, for example:
“For the purpose of Open Access, a CC-BY public copyright licence has been applied by the authors to the present document and will be applied to all subsequent versions up to the Author Accepted Manuscript arising from this submission”.
Note: Other licence options are also available like CC-BY-NC which prohibits commercial use, except by the publisher the article is submitted to.
How does this work legally?
Authors own the intellectual property rights to their manuscripts and can therefore opt to attach a licence to them. A free licence like Creative Commons guarantees free access to the manuscript in the future. Conversely access rights may subsequently be restricted without a licence. This means that the rights retention strategy will prevail if it is applied. It is also possible to sign a classic rights assignment contract later on but this does not prevent authors depositing their files in open archives.
Who supports the rights retention approach?
The rights retention strategy is supported by cOAlition S, a group of 28 research funding organisations that launched the Plan S initiative. The 27 member states of the European Union have also expressed their support for this strategy with France including it in its second National Plan for Open Science.
Is it compulsory?
No. Institutions can make recommendations but authors are always free to apply their chosen licence to their texts or opt for no licence. However, if there is a research contract, a funding agency can make it compulsory to apply a licence
Document under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 licence
