Article 30 of the French Law for a Digital Republic (2016) gives authors the right to archive an OA copy of their work, even after having granted exclusive rights to a publisher. The conditions are the following:

1. It applies to journal articles, and only to the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or postprint;

2. The published article must be at least 50% publicly funded, and the authors must be exercising in France;

3. If publishers set an embargo period, it cannot last more than 6 months for a publication in sciences and 12 months for a publication in human and social sciences;

4. When the publisher has itself published the article in open access, the authors may deposit the postprint without further delay.

For additional information, please contact hal-contact@univ-reims.fr or refer to the Passport For Open Science designed by the MESR and the Committee for Open Science.

The Éditions et Presses universitaires de Reims (ÉPURE) are part of the University Library. It publishes scholarly monographs and academic journals written or coordinated by teachers-researchers of the University. Editors, along with reading committees and external experts, are accountable and responsible for editorial decisions.

Different funding models exist to cover publication costs. Often, Article Processing Charges (APCs) are billed. These significant costs can be paid by the authors, their laboratory or their home organisation.

The Couperin consortium is responsible for negotiating national access licences. It has obtained substantial discounts on APCs for subscribers as part of the so-called transforming agreements. Click here to find out more.

Fees paid for open access journal articles by universities and research institutions, including URCA’s, are available on the OpenAPC platform operated by Bielefeld University Library.

If you have further questions, please write to bu-chercheurs@univ-reims.fr.

Rogue publishers exploit the author-pays model by collecting APCs without performing the expected services of genuine editorial work. Proceed with caution if you receive unsolicited emails of publishers with dubious peer reviewing or business practices.

Suspicious of a journal’s authenticity? The project Compass to Publish designed by ULiège Library helps you determine the degree of authenticity of open access journals requiring or hiding APCs using a criteria-based evaluation.

The URCA Charter of Good Publication Practices entered into force on January 1st, 2024.

You may upload the publisher’s PDF file of your article if it was published under a Creative Commons (CC) License. The CC icon can be found on the document or on the webpage.

If you have the right to upload the publisher’s PDF file, go directly to step 4; if not, go to step 2.

If you do not have the right to upload the publisher’s PDF file of your article, the French Law for a Digital Republic allows you to submit your postprint within a maximum period of 6 (STM) to 12 months (HSS) after publication, regardless of your publishing contract.

If you have the postprint of your article, go directly to step 4.

If you no longer have your postprint, you can ask your co-authors or the corresponding author, or you can follow the Direct2AAM set of guides to obtain it from your journal submission system.

If you have been able to retrieve your postprint, go to step 4. If not, you will unfortunately not be able to deposit your file.

Before starting, check that your document has not already been deposited in the HAL generic portal to avoid duplication, and ask all your co-authors for permission to deposit.

You must create an account to deposit. Once authenticated, you can upload your file via the user interface (Upload) or via API (SWORD protocol).

If you have any doubts, you can send us your files at hal-contact@univ-reims.fr.

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) resolves to the URL of a publication, which may change and become a dead link. Because of its persistent URLs and the CINES storage system, HAL guarantees lasting storage of files and of the link used to access them.

You can check the publishers’ open access policies online:

The Directory of Open Access Books is the largest resource to find open access book publishers;

The Open policy finder (formerly known as SHERPA Romeo) provides an overview of the policies of international scientific journals;

Mir@bel reports access to French electronic scientific journals in Human Sciences.

A postprint or Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is the peer-reviewed version of an article that is given to the journal for copy editing and typesetting. It can be legally deposited in an open repository within 6 (STM) to 12 (HSS) months after publication.

Publishers can require a temporary restriction on public access to an accepted manuscript until publication or beyond. It is calculated from the publishing date of the original publication and may vary from a 6-24, sometimes even up to a 36-48, months period.

You may deposit immediately and apply an embargo period, at the end of which the full text will be made openly available.

Chapters published in a collective work and contributions to conference proceedings do not fall within the scope of the Law for a Digital Republic. To find out whether you can deposit, please refer to the contract signed with your publisher or contact them to request permissions. You can also consult publishers’ policies for chapters and monographs on the HAL documentation.