National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data

Abstract

Adopted in 2024 by Japan's Integrated Innovation Strategy Promotion Council, the National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data mandates immediate, zero-embargo open access for peer-reviewed papers and scientific data resulting from new publicly funded competitive research grants from fiscal year 2025 onwards.

Overview

Country	Japan
Start date	2024
Annual Budget
Responsible organisation(s)	Integrated Innovation Strategy Promotion Council
Target group(s)	Research community
Policy instrument type	Strategies, agendas and plans

Background

The policy was developed in response to growing concerns over rising subscription and article processing charges (APCs), the increasing concentration of scholarly publishing among global academic publishers, and the need to enhance the accessibility and societal value of publicly funded research. It builds on Japan's commitment to open science under the Integrated Innovation Strategy 2023, as well as earlier efforts to improve research data management through the National Policy on Management and Utilisation of Publicly Funded Research Data (2021). The policy also reflects international developments, including commitments made during the G7 Hiroshima Summit and the G7 Sendai Science and Technology Ministerial Meeting in 2023.

Objective(s)

• Ensure immediate open access to scholarly publications and scientific data generated through publicly funded research, making research outputs freely available and reusable by society.

• Strengthen Japan's capacity to disseminate research outputs globally through repositories and other research information infrastructures, while promoting data sharing in line with FAIR principles.

• Reduce the financial burden of scholarly publishing on the research community by supporting collective negotiations with academic publishers and optimising publication and subscription costs.

Public access URL

• https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/oa_240216_en.pdf

All tags

Open access by default

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