Funding for Open Access book publications

NWO wants to step up its efforts to make the academic books that result from its funding Open Access as well. That is why NWO will make 500,000 euros a year available for the Open Access publication of books from 1 June 2020 onwards. Applications for this ‘Open Access Books’ call for proposals can be submitted throughout the year as long as the budget lasts. Open Access Books is a continuous call, initially until 2022. The total budget is 500,000 euros per year with a limit of 10,000 euros per publication.

Since 2015 NWO has been committed to ensure that all publications resulting from its funding are made available in Open Access. Our policy applies to scholarly articles as well as to academic books and book chapters. Any publication costs associated with Open Access will be reimbursed via the project budget. However, writing a book often takes longer than the duration of an NWO project, which means that researchers cannot include the costs of Open Access publication for books in the project budget.

The Open Access Books programme reimburses the book processing charges associated with making academic books Open Access. This applies to all academic books funded by NWO. ‘Academic books’ refers to both peer-reviewed monographs and edited collections.

Plan S en National Plan Open Science

The call is closely aligned with the planned implementation of Plan S in 2021, as well as the National Plan Open Science which also aims to promote Open Access for scholarly formats other than only the journal articles. 

How to apply

On the website of NWO you can find information on how to submit an application and about the requirements and criteria that have to be met.  Applications within this programme are not in competition with each other, and NWO intends to honour all applications that meet the conditions and criteria as long as the annual budget is sufficient.