Rights and requirements

• You are a researcher working at UCLouvain :

You are obliged to deposit all your scientific publications in the institutional repository DIAL.pr (bibliographic data and full text) by choosing the type of access.

You must comply with the FWB decree for articles.

• You are financed by funds from the FWB : 

All your ARTICLES published in periodicals appearing at least 1x/year must be made available in OPEN ACCESS (with the possibility of embargo if the publisher so requests).

• You are not financed by FWB or European funds but you have a geographical link with Belgium (a contract for example):

You have the RIGHT to put your scientific ARTICLES in open access, even if you have signed a contract with a publisher. The latter may nevertheless request an embargo (6 to 12 months).

• You are financed by a European fund (Horizon Europe):

For all your publications that have been peer-reviewed, you MUST deposit them in open access immediately in an institutional repository, under a CC BY licence. There is no embargo, this is immediate Open Access. Nothing prevents you from publishing with a publisher, but you must maintain your copyright (CC BY licence).

The decree aimed at establishing an open access policy for scientific publications in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, which came into force on 14 September 2018, IMPOSES :

Open access deposit in an institutional repository (e.g. DIAL.pr at UCLouvain)

Any article accepted or published in a journal published at least once a year

Whose author carries out research in a scientific or teaching establishment funded in whole or in part by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation

Directly on publication by the publisher (if applicable)

In a version accepted by the publisher but without the latter's layout. If no publisher = post print version = version incorporating the changes requested by the peer reviewer.

The publisher may impose an embargo period on the author during which access to the publication must remain closed in the repository. This period may not exceed 6 months for SST and SSS and 12 months for SSH. It begins on the day of publication.

The decree came into force the academic year 2018

It has no retroactive effect : all the articles published before this date are not concerned.

Only publications duly deposited in the institutional repository will be taken into consideration when assessing applications for promotion, appointment or allocation of research credits in the FWB.

Other publications (books, book chapters, communications, etc.) must also be deposited in DIAL. The institution strongly encourages open access to these publications, but this requires prior agreement from the publisher (if they have been published and the author has assigned his or her rights). If the author has maintained his/her rights, he/she is free to distribute his/her work with the desired access in the institutional repository.  ​

Following the decree, which only concerns works financed by the FWB, the Belgian government published an amendment to the law on copyright enshrined in the Economic Code, adding a paragraph establishing a right to disseminate works in open access.

The law reads as follows : 

• Any author whose research is at least 50% publicly funded has the RIGHT to disseminate his or her scientific articles in open access, even if a contract has already been signed with a publisher.
• In the hierarchy of norms, this state right takes precedence over any contract between the author and the publisher: even if the author has already signed a contract transferring or licensing his rights, Belgian law authorises him to disseminate his article in open access from an institutional repository.
• The law does, however, provide for embargo periods if the publisher does not agree to open access immediately (6 months in SSS and SST, 12 months in SSH).
• This right applies to anyone with a link to Belgian territory (such as a contract).
• Unlike the decree, the law is retroactive: it allows access to articles published before 2018.

Code of Economic Law, Book XI, art. 196

Some funders also issue Open Access requirements or recommendations

This is the case for the FNRS and European funding (Horizon Europe).

This table explains how they sometimes go further than the decree.

At its ordinary meeting on 2 July 2012, UCL's Academic Council decided to require all researchers working at UCL to deposit both the bibliographic data and the full text of all scientific publications (of all types) from January 2013. Full-text submission will therefore only apply to publications produced on or after 1 January 2013.

In summary, from January 2013, for all scientific publications .

Deposit of the bibliographic reference AND the full text in the institutional repository (DIAL.pr) is mandatory. The type of access (open, restricted, embargoed or prohibited) is optional.

Since the 2018-2019 academic year: the FWB decree has been applied for scientific articles, i.e. open access by default and the possibility of embargo (6 months SST and SSS, 12 months SSH) if requested by the publisher.