Impact and visibility of research
University of Oulu, together with other Finnish universities, has adopted a prior licence model by decision of the rector. It is based on the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS), which ensures that all peer-reviewed research articles from the university are openly available in the university's institutional repository immediately after publication under a Creative Commons license.
The prior licence model is based on the recommendations of the international Plan S initiative, and its aim is to secure researchers’ right to archive their articles for long-term preservation in the university's institutional repository and to disseminate it openly, regardless of any restrictions imposed by publishers. It strengthens knowledge security, supports economic sustainability, and ensures that researchers retain their copyrights.
Peer-reviewed research articles written by researchers at University of Oulu will be deposited in the OuluREPO institutional repository as of 1 May 2026 as follows:
- The prior licence model applies to peer-reviewed articles in journals, conference proceedings, and anthologies (Ministry of Education and Culture publication types A1–A4)
- If the article has been published Open Access under a Creative Commons license, the final version published by the publisher (Version of Record, Publisher's PDF) is self-archived.
- If the article has been published behind a paywall in a subscription-based publication channel, the last peer-reviewed manuscript version (Author Accepted Manuscript, AAM) is self-archived.
The prior licence model applies to all manuscripts submitted to the publication channel on or after May 1, 2026. It does not apply retroactively to manuscripts submitted before May 1, 2026.
If the author does not want to make their article published behind a paywall immediately open access, they have the right to opt out of the pre-licensing model by requesting an exception. In such a case, the article will be made open access in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Unless the researcher specifically requests an exception for their article, they grant the university permission to immediately make the AAM version of their article openly available in the institutional repository under a Creative Commons license.
University of Oulu undertakes to bear the legal and financial responsibility if the publisher sues the researcher for violating the terms and conditions of the publishing agreement when a researcher affiliated with University of Oulu complies with university's prior licence model in the university's publication repository.
Publisher's guide contains information about publishing, such as selecting the right publishing channel, Oulu UAS' web publishing series Oamk Journal, announcing publication information, parallel publishing, and open science and research.
