Università Cattolica supports open access with the conviction that it reinforces the visibility, dissemination, and exploitation of scientific research results at both national and international level. On the 6th of December 2006, it joined the Berlin Declaration and in 2008 it launched the first Institutional Open Access Repository for the University's doctoral theses, DocTA. In 2012, the Institutional Repository of the University's publications was created, with the obligation for all teachers and researchers to update their publications in PubliCatt.

The University's extensive commitment also involves the Library, which has launched a series of initiatives for open access publication, in addition to the funds granted by the University. In order to guarantee a contribution for the payment of the fees requested by publishers:

• 2019: signing of an agreement with the Swiss publisher MDPI whereby authors affiliated to Università Cattolica and Policlinico Gemelli are granted a 10% discount on publication fees.
• Subscription to the CRUI-Elsevier contract which gives discounts on Article Processing Charges (APC).
• Subscription of Transformative Agreements managed at national level by CRUI. The immediate advantage for researchers is the possibility to publish in open access in selected journals without direct costs on research funds.

Currently, UCSC joined five Transformative Agreements: Wiley, Springer Nature, Cambridge University Press, De Gruyter, Emerald.

Thanks to these agreements, researchers are entitled to publish in open access without additional costs up to the annual maximum cap. 

Contractual conditions are described in detail in specific Guidelines available at the following link: 

https://unicatt.libguides.com/open-science-open-access-at-Unicatt/pubblicare-riviste-ibride

Otherwise, visit the webpage:

https://unicatt.libguides.com/open-science-open-access-at-Unicatt/pubblicare-riviste-open-access

In order to facilitate access to these opportunities for UCSC researchers, it is suggested that corresponding authors and authors indicate their ORCID in their publications and in their respective publication processes and declare their affiliation to the University.

Any requests for clarification or further investigation can be addressed to:

• supporto.openscience@unicatt.it for the Po Valley offices.
• supporto.openscience-rm@unicatt.it for the Rome office.