“Open scientific scholarly publishing”

In order to pursue its goal of structuring the ecosystem of open access edition, the FNSO^[1]Created in 2019, the National Fund for Open Science (FNSO) is the national instrument of the National Plan for Open Science. Its purpose is to provide financial support for projects and initiatives that contribute to the development of open science. In 2019, 2021 and 2022, the FNSO launched three calls for projects for the open scientific and scholarly publishing that contributed to the support of 68 projects for a financial volume of 7,16M€. The details of the projects and initiatives supported by the FNSO are available on the ouvrirlascience.fr website. is launching a fourth call for projects (AAP FNSO 4), in favour of open scientific scholarly publishing and its ecosystem. The purpose of the call for projects is to consolidate bibliodiversity, meaning the diversity of actors in scientific scholarly publishing, of financing models, and of  publication forms and communication languages.

The following are eligible for the FNSO call ‘Open scientific scholarly publishing’: higher education and research institutions, companies or any institution with legal personality whose main mission is research and/or the dissemination of knowledge.

The call for projects is aimed at:

1. 1. Research infrastructures included in the national roadmap for research infrastructures;
   2. Editorial structures, support centres for publishing activities and platforms for the dissemination of scientific publications;
   3. Editorial content or content combining several editorial projects.

   The call for projects is aimed at initiatives led by French institutions or foreign players with a significant impact on the French scientific publication landscape. Partnerships with foreign players and their involvement in the European and international context are strongly encouraged.

   Objectives of the call:

   • Finance structuring and mutualized actions to develop open access scientific publishing;
   • Encourage the transition to open access;
   • Strengthen and structure open access scientific publishing capacities, and encourage alignment with editorial quality standards;
   • Promote the diversity of funding models for open access publishing, in particular in favor of the diamond model, with no cost to readers or authors. Projects based on a transparent and reasoned publication fee model may also be supported in the scope of this call;
   • Foster the emergence of players capable of collecting, managing and redistributing financial contributions from a wide range of stakeholders for the benefit of editorial content (journals, books, etc.) published in open access without publication fees for authors;
   • Promote the continuum between publications, data and source code;
   • Promote the reproducibility or traceability of the scientific method, scientific integrity, combat publication bias, encourage the publication of negative results;
   • Support innovative editorial processes, e.g. peer review, collaborative writing, etc.

   Limits of the call:

   • Projects focusing exclusively on managing, sharing, opening up, promoting or publishing research data; 
   • Projects focusing on the translation of scientific content.

   Application:

   • A project coordinator submits an online application, detailing the project’s overall aims and explaining its financial needs. The project coordinator must complete the online application form, which includes the following information: 
   • Selection of the type of initiative (Research infrastructure included in the national roadmap for research infrastructures / Platform or editorial structure / Editorial content or content combining several editorial projects); 
   • Identification of the project and the project coordinator; 
   • Short summary and long summary; 
   • State of the art, description of the overall project and identification of project stakeholders; 
   • Request for financial resources; 
   • Information on the principles and good practices of open science (according to the grids in part H of the call); 
   • Commitment by the project coordinator to have sought and obtained the agreement of his/her superiors to participate in the project and to have sought and obtained the agreement of any Beneficiaries and Project Partners.

   The project coordinator submits the following documents in the ‘Attachments’ section of the application: 

   • Merged CVs of the project coordinator and all the project partners (project beneficiary(ies) and project partner(s)); 
   • The financial grid for the project; 
   • Any additional documents to support the application (summaries and financial statements, graphical representations, presentations or explanatory appendices). 

   The application will be considered complete, and therefore eligible, if all these elements are completed and available on the submission site on the closing date indicated. The preferred language for applying is French. Applications in English are possible.

   Information on open science principles and good practice

   The project coordinator is required to write a paragraph indicating how the project meets the principles and good practices of open science listed in one of the two grids in part H of the call. Please note that Grid A corresponds to projects of the Dissemination Platform, Service Cluster, Editorial Structure, or Infrastructure type; Grid B corresponds to projects of the Editorial Content type. 

   • Indicate the best practices that are already in place, and those on which the structure or project needs to make progress.  
   • These criteria can be considered as targets. The fact that they are not achieved at the start of the project does not prevent the project from being submitted. 
   • If you are unable to meet certain criteria that may seem essential, please explain why. 

   Examination of applications and evaluation criteria

   The Deliberation Committee will examine the applications according to the following evaluation criteria: 

   • Scientific relevance and appropriateness of the application with regard to the call guidelines;
   • Sharing strategy between players;
   • Potential impact of the project on open science, particularly in terms of critical mass;
   • Co-financing and overall financial balance of the project;
   • Feasibility of the proposal, adequacy of resources for the objectives; 
   • Meeting the principles and good practices of open science (according to the grids in part H of the call).

   Indicative Timetable

   • 12th March 2025 at 2pm CET (UTC+1): Opening of the SIGAP platform for submitting applications
   • 21st May 2025 at 2pm CET (UTC+1): Closure of the call for projects
   • Last trimester of 2025: Publication of the results
   • First trimestre 2026: Contractualisation phase 

   To apply for the fourth call for projects of the National Fund for Open Science:

   1) Please take note of the documentation to be downloaded below (in French) :

   • Text of the call for projects FNSO 4 ‘Open scientific scholarly publishing’;
   • Application form template (applications submitted on the SIGAP online platform only will be valid)
   • Financial request form
   • Registration guide for the SIGAP application platform.

   2) Go to the SIGAP application platform at the following address, from 12th March 2025 at 2pm CET :

   If you have any questions or problems, please contact the following address:

   fnso.aap@cnrs.fr