The National Research Foundation (NRF) recognises the importance of Open Access to science and research while at the same time appreciating that Open Access will continue to evolve in response to societal needs, achieving overarching policy harmonisation and new innovative publishing business models.
From 01 March 2015, authors of research papers generated from research either fully or partially funded by NRF, when submitting and publishing in academic journals, should deposit their final peer-reviewed manuscripts that have been accepted by the journals, to the administering Institution Repository with an embargo period of no more than 12 months. Earlier Open Access may be provided should this be allowed by the publisher. If the paper is published in an Open Access journal or the publisher allows the deposit of the published version in PDF format, such version should be deposited into the administering Institutional Repository and Open Access should be provided as soon as possible.
In addition, the data supporting the publication should be deposited in an accredited Open Access repository, with the provision of a Digital Object Identifier for future citation and referencing.
The NRF encourages its stakeholder community, including NRF’s Business Units and National Research Facilities, to:
- Formulate detailed policies on Open Access of publications and data from its funded research;
- Establish Open Access repositories; and
- Support public access to the repositories through web search and retrieval according to international standards and best practice.
The NRF requires its relevant Business Units and National Research Facilities to actively collaborate with relevant governmental departments and public higher education and research institutions to facilitate Open Access to publications generated from publicly funded research. The NRF requires its stakeholder community to actively seek collaboration with the international scientific community to facilitate the Open Access of publications generated from publicly funded research across the world.
