NCN’s New OA Policies: Same Idea but More Flexibility

The National Science Centre no longer requires, but still recommends, open access publishing. 

The modifications reflect the voices of the scientific community and demonstrate concern for the effective grant system. “We want to ease project-related bureaucratic burdens on researchers,” says Prof. Krzysztof Jóźwiak, NCN Director.  

As of 26 June 2025, the reports may include articles published in the traditional closed-access model. The new policy will apply to both the calls to be launched in September 2025 (pursuant to Order No 39/2025 by the NCN Director) and to ongoing projects (pursuant to NCN Director’s letter of 26 June 2025). “If the principal investigator of an ongoing project has so far been unable to include their publication in the report because it was conflicted with our OA Policy, they may now do so,” says the Director.

Principal investigators will also be allowed to cover the article processing charges (APC) for open access publications in hybrid journals, which was forbidden before. However, spending on open access will remain limited to 2% of direct costs (the so-called OA indirect costs budget) and  possibly to other indirect costs as well.

The new regulations for open access publishing of research findings was approved by the NCN Council in its Resolution of 5 June 2025.

The amended regulations apply to projects funded under NCN domestic / national calls for proposals. In international calls the rules may differ. Where partner institutions impose more stringent requirements, those will continue to apply. This is particularly relevant for calls funded under horizontal programmes, where the European Commission enforces strict open access requirements. NCN’s more restrictive OA provisions (Order No 38/2020) will be maintained for projects funded through international CHANSE and CHIST-ERA networks as well as under POLONEZ BIS. Projects funded by the Biodiversa+ network will continue to be subject to the Horizon Europe regulations. On the other hand, flexible provisions will apply to beneficiaries of ForestValue2, Luke, QuantERA III and T-AP calls.  

NCN Fostering Open Science

Although NCN is moving away from strict requirements, it is not steeping back from supporting the idea of openness. “Open access remains very important to us,” emphasises Prof. Jóźwiak. “We will continue to promote routes to facilitate open access. In particular, we recommend the use of so-called green open access, where manuscript versions are deposited in recognised disciplinary or institutional repositories in line  with publisher policies and applicable regulations. Examples include repositories such as arXiv or Zenodo”. “It is also important to ensure that once the article is published in a journal, the repository includes a link to the published version, and after any embargo period required by the journal, an updated version as close as possible to the published one is deposited,” adds Prof. Tomasz Dietl, Chair of the NCN Council.

The NCN Director says that “in the 21st century, open publishing of research findings is standard practice. Open science is more transparent and better supports the needs of society. Where a publication is publicly available, it can be read, commented on and verified by anyone, which enhances scientific credibility.”

The NCN will continue to monitor the number of papers resulting from NCN-funded projects published in open access, as well as the route  through which they are published, based on information reported in the OSF submission system. The routes will be assessed in accordance with the previous regulations. If an author decides to classify their publication as open, it must meet the criteria of the relevant OA publishing route. Otherwise, the publication will be considered closed-access, without any formal, financial, or substantive consequences for the grant settlement.  For all publications, regardless of the publishing model, NCN applies the same substantive criteria: the quality of the publication and the international reach of the publisher. The obligation to disclose research data will remain unchanged, even if publications are not available in open access. The data underpinning the scientific publications must be shared in accordance with the FAIR principles - in open and credible repositories. The NCN will monitor the effects of the new policy.

“We will be monitoring whether there are any changes in the  publication structure, though I am confident,” says the NCN Director. “The most important change has already happened: awareness of the importance of open access is now widespread within the Polish academic community. Publishing in open access increases researchers’ visibility and remains our priority.”