Since 2015, the University of Cagliari has been pursuing the principles of open science by committing itself to fostering full access to scientific literature (Policy on Open Access to Scientific Research).

For the development and promotion of an institutional strategy of open access and open science, the University has appointed the Open Science Policy Commission and adopted the University's Open Science Policy document.

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UNICA IRIS is the institutional archive of the University and is intended to receive the descriptive bibliographic, administrative and management metadata of the contribution and itself in a digital version.

1. meets international best practices and technical standards on Open Access; in particular, it meets the OAI-PMH standard for interoperability of Open Access repositories;
2. meets international best practices and technical standards for the preservation of scientific research products over time;
3. it is indexed by the main generalist and specialist search engines, which guarantee maximum dissemination and visibility to deposited materials.

Upon acceptance or publication of the contribution, the author is required to initiate the deposit procedure in the Institutional Repository:

• entering all the bibliographical metadata useful for the retrieval and citation of the contribution itself;
• depositing the digital copy of the product in the version permitted by the publisher for open access dissemination. By inserting the digital copy, the Author authorises the University to make it available to the public for free and open access.

UNICApress is the diamond open access publishing house of the University of Cagliari. It proposes the widest visibility and dissemination of its own or external research and teaching products.
The instruments through which UNICApress operates are: the monographs production line structured in 4 different sections (Research, University, Communication and Education) and the UniCa Open Journals hub.
Both journals and monographs are hosted and managed via dedicated software platforms that make it easy for the various editorial boards and series boards not only to manage the editorial flow, but above all to manage peer reviews. There are no APCs.
Texts are always published under a Creative Commons licence (generally CC-BY-SA) so as to facilitate research activities and the free use of data. Publication with UNICApress allows its users to travel the gold road of OA in its diamond declination.

UniCA adheres to several read&publish agreements through Care-Crui. Since 2020, the CRUI Care Group has started to sign new tranformative agreements that introduce a different economic model that should support the scientific communication process and foster the transition to the Open Science model. In a nutshell, the expenditure incurred by academic institutions for consulting scientific journals is transformed into expenditure also for open access publishing (read & publish) by their affiliated authors.

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As part of the implementation of the HR Excellence in Research process (HRS4R), since 2025, UniCA has granted funding to support young researchers who wish to publish their research products in open access.  

Read the 2026 notice DR 181/2026 

SUBJECT OF INTERVENTION: a financial support will be awarded to eligible researchers for publishing scientific contributions in pure (or gold) open access with Italian and foreign publishers. 

BENEFICIARIES: Applications are open to R1 (PhD students, resident students, non-medical specialization school students, research assignments), R2 (postdoctoral fellows, research fellows, research contract, post-doc assignments) and R3 (RTdA, RTdB, RTT researchers) who are affiliated with the University of Cagliari at the time of submission of their paper to the publisher. 

AVAILABLE RESOURCES: €70,000.00 for the year 2026; the amount awarded to each researcher may not exceed €2,500.00 (including VAT) for the current year. The amount may only be granted for the coverage of publication costs for a research product that meets the requirements specified in the call for applications. 

ONLINE APPLICATION PROCEDURE: by completing the appropriate form; applicants must certify that they meet all the requirements set out in the call for applications and provide the information necessary for the evaluation of their application. The form can be filled in Italian or English by selecting the language from the drop-down menu at the top of it. 

DEADLINE: Access to the grant is on a 'first come, first served' basis. Applications submitted for eligible grants will be processed in the order in which they are received, and must be submitted by 31/12/2026, until the fund is exhausted. 

For support, please contact openaccess@unica.it  

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OPEN ACCESS AWARD 2025: Call DR n 344 of 1/4/2025 - Contributions approved until December 31, 2025

SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) is an international project, initiated by CERN, which takes the form of a scientific collaboration between public research institutes and universities, aimed at supporting the costs of publishing articles in Open Access mode in peer-reviewed journals in Particle Physics. Our university joined in 2020 by signing a Memorandum of Understandig (MOU) through CRUI.

The list of publishers and journals participating in SCOAP3 is available here

Authors of Physics articles published in journals participating in SCOAP3 benefit from:

• immediate open access;
• no direct costs
• no administrative burden
• automatic compliance with national and institutional open access mandates and policies;
• copyright retention.

The submission process remained unchanged with the introduction of SCOAP3 and is detailed in the usual ‘Guidelines for Authors’ of each journal. Authors do not have to pay to publish in a SCOAP3 journal. As an author, it is recommended that you include your ORCiD in the submission process: it helps SCOAP3 partners discover and support your publications.

UniCA recognises incentives and negotiates favourable terms for open access publishing with scientific publishers. Below is a list of existing conventions and agreements:

• ASM (American Society for Microbiology): Pending finalization of the new ASM contract, it is possible for affiliated corresponding authors to publish in open access at no cost, thanks to our continued subscription to content (the "Subscribe to Open - S2O" model). The journals involved are:
  • Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
  • Applied and Environmental Microbiology
  • Infection and Immunity
  • Journal of Bacteriology
  • Journal of Clinical Microbiology
  • Journal of Virology

For more information, please visit the publisher's website.

• Bentham Science: the agreement provides a 20% discount on the cost of articles published in Open Access in all of the publisher's titles, including books and series. Read more.
• Science: a 12% discount on APCs is available for Science Advances, a Gold Open Access journal from the publisher AAAS Science. The eligible article type is the Research Article. The discount will be applied only if the first corresponding author is affiliated with the University of Cagliari (it is necessary to indicate the University as the primary affiliation and to identify oneself using the institutional email address). Instructions here;

• The Royal society: It is possible to publish in Open Access at no cost for corresponding authors affiliated with our University. This is made possible by our ongoing subscription to the contents through the "Subscribe to Open" (S2O) model.

  The journals included in this agreement are:

  • Biology Letters
  • Interface Focus
  • Journal of the Royal Society Interface
  • Notes and Records
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
  • Proceedings of the Royal Society A
  • Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

For more information, please visit the publisher's website.

Membership with BMC is currently suspended while membership with MDPI has not been renewed.
For further information and/or clarification, please write to risorseelettroniche@unica.it

In 2022, UniCa updated its policies on open access to scientific research, which set out the basic concepts, definitions and practices to be followed in order to comply with OA publication standards, instituting the mandatory deposit in the institutional repository IRIS of a digital copy of all scientific publications, in the publisher's allowed version for open access.

Open access dissemination of scientific publications and research data is mandatory in cases of publicly funded research, e.g.:

• articles in scientific journals with at least two issues per year and resulting from research projects at least 50% publicly funded, pursuant to paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of Article 4 of Law no. 112 of 7 October 2013 (G.U. no. 236 of 8-10-2013)
• publications in research projects funded by the European Research Council.
  • all publications produced within the framework of Horizon 2020 funded research projects must be archived at the time of acceptance or at the time of publication with a maximum embargo period of 6 months (12 months for publications in the humanities and social sciences);
  • research data from projects funded under Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe;
  • all publications produced in research projects funded by Horizon Europe must be deposited in IRIS (and, if requested, another OA repository, e.g. Zenodo) at the time of acceptance or at the time of publication without an embargo period and under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence;
• publications and research data produced within the framework of projects funded by the national programme PRIN 2015, PRIN 2017, PRIN 2020, pursuant to paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of art. 4 of Law no. 112 of 7 October 2013 (G.U. no. 236 of 8-10-2013) .

The University Library System, through its libraries, promotes open access also through participation in events:

• 26 October 2022: University event dedicated to open access (OA) policies and practices
• October 2023: as part of the International Open Access Week initiatives, an event entitled “Open Access & Open Science @ UniCA: present status and perspectives” was held on 23 October. The Biomedical Science District Library also set up a poster display with a selection of open access articles and monographs on the theme of “Community over Commercialisation”.
• May 2025: participation of the Biomedical Science District Library in the 29th edition of Monumenti Aperti with a display of articles and monographs dedicated to Open Access, including books and articles published by UNICApress
• September 2025: participation of the Biomedical Science District Library in Sharper Night with an event entitled 'Immerse yourself in research: science is open to everyone'
• October 2025: as part of the International Open Access Week initiatives, the Biomedical Science District Library set up a physical and virtual poster display with a selection of open access articles and monographs on the theme “Who owns knowledge?”.