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FCT believes that the results of scientific research should be widely disseminated and freely available.
The benefits of Open Access are widely accepted and promoted by researchers, universities, international organisations and a host of public research agencies. Open access impacts on research directly, allowing its widespread dissemination and fostering interdisciplinary development. It also acts indirectly, at a socio-economic level, by giving professionals from different subject areas, from industry, and other stakeholders easy access to scientific research.
Portugal’s forward thinking approach on Open Access is widely acknowledged across Europe. Its open access repository infrastructure, Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP) has played a crucial role not only in increasing the visibility of Portuguese universities on the internet, but also in the rapid development and spread of Open Access repositories within several academic institutions.
Over the last five years, FCT has actively participated in implementing Open Access strategies, namely by supporting RCAAP and, recently, by launching a public consultation on proposals for policies on Open Access.
The FCT Policies on Open Access are a direct outcome of the public consultation. They encompass guidelines for free, online access to peer-reviewed publications and data arising from FCT funding. The policies came into force on 5 May 2014.
The core of the policy on open access to publications arising from FCT-funded research is that all publications of research outputs, subject to peer-review or another form of scientific review, should be deposited in one of the open access repositories hosted within RCAAP as soon as possible, preferably immediately on acceptance for publication. An embargo period is allowed, after which the full content of the publications should be made freely available, at no cost. The policy applies to papers in scientific journals, conference proceedings, posters, books and book chapters, monographs, Masters and PhD theses. FCT funding encompasses project grants, studentships and fellowships, career development contracts (FCT Investigator).
The policy on management and sharing of data and other results arising from FCT-funded research encourages researchers to share primary data and other data with the scientific community, by placing the data in open access databases (such as Genbank, for example), within the shortest time possible. In this case, too, FCT funding encompasses project grants, studentships and fellowships, career development contracts (FCT Investigator).
Read the full text of the policies here (only in Portuguese):