10 WHO supports open access to the published output of its activities as a fundamental part of its mission and a prerequisite for addressing the public
health challenges of the twenty-first century. The WHO open-access policy is an expression of this position. It is also in keeping with the spirit and goals outlined in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Scientific Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. In the case of external publications, the policy is also in accordance with WHO’s role and responsibilities in health research (resolution WHA63.21), the WHO strategy on research for health (A63/22) and the Global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property (GSPA-PHI) (resolution WHA61.21). The policy takes account of WHO’s obligations as an intergovernmental organization (IGO) and aims to increase the reach and usage of WHO publications, and to maximize access to WHO-authored and WHO-funded work published externally.
20 The objectives of the policy are:
-
to provide free public access – via the internet – to WHO publications;
to provide free public access – via the internet – to the final, peer-reviewed version of WHO-authored or WHO-funded work published outside the Organization;
-
to facilitate reuse of WHO publications and of WHO-authored or WHO-funded work published externally under a Creative Commons licence, but not for uses that are contrary to the Organization’s mission and policies, such as for the promotion of commercial products or services (see section
VIII.2.7)
;
-
to ensure that WHO-authored or WHO-funded work published externally is made publicly available via the Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS) and Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC);
-
to retain copyright in WHO-authored work published outside the Organization in accordance with the related policy (see section
VIII.6.3) and to protect the privileges and immunities of the Organization.
30 The policy applies to:
- all WHO publications with an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) or a WHO reference number;
- WHO journals;
- journal articles and book chapters authored or co-authored by WHO staff and published externally;
- journal articles and book chapters produced by individuals or institutions funded in whole or in part by WHO and published externally.
40 Under this policy, publications issued by WHO will be published under the following types of licence.
| WHO publications assigned an ISBN or a WHO reference number after 11 November 2016 | WHO | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO
|
| WHO publications assigned an ISBN or a WHO reference number before 11 November 2016 | WHO | To be decided on a case-by-case basis |
WHO journals
African Health Monitor
Bulletin of the World Health Organization Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal
Pan American Journal of Public Health Public Health Panorama
Weekly Epidemiological Record
Western Pacific Surveillance and Response
WHO Drug Information
WHO South-East Asia Journal of Public Health
|
WHO
WHO
WHO
WHO
WHO
WHO
WHO
WHO
WHO
|
To be confirmed
CC BY 3.0 IGO
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO
CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO
CC BY 3.0 IGO
To be confirmed
CC BY 3.0 IGO
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO
To be confirmed
|
External journal articles authored by WHO staff
| External
| CC BY 3.0 IGO
|
External journal articles resulting from WHO-funded research
| External
| CC BY 4.0
|
External book chapters authored by WHO staff
| External
| CC BY 3.0 IGO or CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO
|
External book chapters resulting from WHO-funded research
| External
| CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-NC 4.0
|
Books published jointly with other organizations
| External | To be decided on a case-by-case basis
|
CC BY 4.0: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; CC BY 3.0 IGO: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO; CC BY-NC 4.0: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0; CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO: Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 IGO; CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 IGO; CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO.
External journal articles
42 In August 2019, in an effort to accelerate progress towards universal free access to health research, WHO joined cOAlition S, an initiative to make full and immediate open access to research publications a reality. cOAlition S is built around Plan S, which consists of 10 principles to ensure that, from 2021, the results from publicly funded research are published in open-access journals,1 on open-access platforms,2 or made immediately available through open-access repositories without any embargo period. In November 2020, WHO’s open-access policy for external journal articles was revised in line with the principles of Plan S.
44 From 1 January 2021, all WHO-authored and WHO-funded articles that are submitted for publication in peer-review journals must be published:
- in an open-access journal;
- on an open-access platform;
- in a subscription journal that has committed to transitioning to open access in accordance with the requirements of Plan S; or
- in a subscription journal that allows authors to deposit their accepted manuscript immediately in Europe PMC under the terms of a CC BY 3.0 IGO or a CC BY 4.0 licence.
46 In the case of options 1–3, the publisher will deposit the version of record of WHO-authored articles in Europe PMC under the CC BY 3.0 IGO licence; in the case of option 4, the author must deposit the version of the manuscript accepted for publication in Europe PMC or PMC by the official date of publication under the CC BY 3.0 IGO licence. These requirements also apply to WHO-funded work, except that the CC BY 4.0 licence should be used.
50 In implementing this policy, WHO:
- will include the costs of open-access charges, as an estimate, in its applications to donors for project support;
- will recognize the costs of open-access charges, as an estimate, in applications for project support that it receives from outside entities (i.e. where WHO acts as a funding agency).
Availability of research data and related materials
60 All research articles that are funded in whole, or in part, by WHO must include a data availability statement with links to underlying data or extended data and any relevant materials necessary to understand, assess and replicate the research. In cases where data cannot be made publicly available for ethical and confidentiality reasons, the statement should indicate the restrictions, the process for applying for access to the data and the conditions that will apply.
70 Data sets should be deposited in an appropriate open data repository, with a persistent identifier, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and under an open licence. The confidentiality and privacy of the individuals concerned must be ensured.
1Open-access journals are defined as journals that are freely accessible, i.e. readers do not need to pay a subscription fee, and reusable under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. They may be free to publish in, or charge an article processing charge. Such journals should be indexed by the
Directory of open access journals and have an agreement with the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) to deposit the final published version (version of record) in PMC and to allow that content to be shared with Europe PMC.
2For the purpose of this policy, open-access platforms are publishing platforms for the original publication of research findings under a CC BY licence. Platforms that serve only to aggregate or republish content that has already been published elsewhere are not considered as such.
