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Write and publish

Here you will find an overview of publishing agreements for you as an employee at Ahus, as well as more information about Open Access and tips for publishing.

For your publication to yield results in the form of publication points and internal recognition at Ahus, the following requirements must be met:

1) It must be a scientific publication:

  • Original article
  • Scientific review article
  • Scientific monograph or anthology article

Read more in Chapter 5 of the Reporting Instructions​

2) It must be an approved publishing channel (level 1 or 2):

3) If funded by the Research Council of Norway (and the EU and the Dam Foundation):

4) Correct addressing on the article
 For Ahus to receive publication points and financial recognition, the institutional address on the publication must be correct according to guidelines for addressing scientific articles at Akershus University Hospital (last updated April 2023).

5) Reporting (during or after publication)

  • The reporting provides the basis for the results-based redistribution (RBO) in the research budgets from the Ministry of Education and Research and the Ministry of Health and Care Services
  • Check that your publications are registered in the National Research Archive (NVA) (formerly Cristin). 
    • Be aware that most publications are imported to NVA automatically; feel free to wait until January to manually register publications, unless you have other deadlines
    • Login via ID-porten
      • If you do not see Ahus as the only, or one of several institutions upon logging in, please contact publisering@ahus.no
      • Login via Feide is possible for those affiliated with an institution that has this, but it does not allow you to select Ahus upon logging in
    • Register results in NVA
    • User guides for NVA
    • NVI Reporting Instructions
  • Internal recognition at Ahus
    All publications that are reported and approved as scientific publications in NVA will be internally recognised at Ahus. The recognition is paid out to the divisions once a year, in May of the year following the reporting of the publication.​​​ Procedure for internal recognition of scientific articles and books​

Open Access means that scientific publications are made freely available online.

In announcements from 2021 onwards, the Research Council requires that all scientific articles from projects they fund must be made available immediately, that is, without delay (embargo) and with an open licence that allows reuse of the publication.

The Research Council's requirements are in collaboration with other European research councils, which together form cOAlition S and support Plan S. The aim of Plan S is for all research to be made immediately openly accessible.

There are three ways you can publish Open Access:
Requirements for open licences
The article must be made available under a Creative Commons licence CC BY 4.0:

 

What should I do as a researcher

Check the channel register (level 1 and 2)
You must also check whether the journal is an approved publishing channel and provides publication points in the Norwegian funding system: Register of scientific publications (kanalregister.hkdir.no)

Retain rights to dissemination (Rights Retention Strategy)
For new announcements from 2021 onwards, the project leader is obliged to ensure that researchers in projects funded by the Research Council retain the right to disseminate a peer-reviewed version (Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM)) of all articles resulting from the project.
 
To ensure this, the corresponding author must include the following message in the web application when the article is submitted for review:
“This research was funded, in whole or in part, by The Research Council of Norway [6-digit project number]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.”
 
Thus, researchers can make articles immediately available through an open archive with an open licence, fulfilling the requirements of Plan S even if the article is published in a "closed" subscription journal.
cOAlition S has notified publishers of this. If the journal unexpectedly refuses publication citing this, one must contact the Research Council. Read more about Rights Retention Strategy

In line with the requirements that publicly funded research should be freely accessible immediately, "publish and read" agreements (PAR agreements) have been negotiated with several publishers. This means that some of the library agreements cover both the article processing charge (APC) and reading access. Additionally, we have some agreements that provide discounts on the APC. Please note that the agreements do not cover all journals from these publishers.

To qualify for APC coverage, you must be affiliated with Ahus, be the corresponding author, and use Ahus as the institutional address on the publication. The corresponding author is the one responsible for submitting the article to the journal. It is important to register/indicate your affiliation with Ahus as early as possible in the process.

If you are affiliated with multiple institutions, they may be part of different agreements than Ahus. Please feel free to contact the Medical Library if you have any questions.

Glossary/abbreviations:

  • APC = article publishing charge
  • Gold = pure open access journals funded by authors paying APC
  • Hybrid = purchasing individual articles in subscription journals
  • PAR = publish and read agreements that provide reading access and cover or give discounts on APC

Information about agreements applicable to Ahus employees:

Cambridge University Press (CUP) [new 2026]

  • Agreement period: 2026
  • The corresponding author (the one submitting the article) must be affiliated with Ahus, state Ahus as the institutional address in the article, and select Ahus as the affiliation when submitting the article.
  • Article types covered: research articles, reviews, rapid communications, brief reports, case reports
  • The date the article is accepted for publication is the relevant date for when the article is approved under the agreement.
  • The agreement covers APC in the publisher's hybrid and gold journals, except for a few society journals. You can also use the publisher's eligibility checker tool.
  • Information from the publisher: OA agreement - Akershus University Hospital, Norway
  • More information: Open Science | Cambridge University Press (CUP)
    NB! We participate in the agreement directly through Cambridge, so Ahus is not listed among the participants on OpenScience.

Elsevier

  • Agreement period: 2025-2027
  • The corresponding author (the one submitting the article) must be affiliated with Ahus, state Ahus as the institutional address in the article, and select Ahus as the affiliation when submitting the article.
  • Article types covered: case reports, data in brief articles, full-length articles, micro-articles, original software publications, practice guidelines, protocols, registered report articles, registered report protocols, replication studies, review articles, short communications, short surveys, video articles.
  • The date the article is accepted for publication is the relevant date for when the article is approved under the agreement.
  • Journals included in the 2025 agreement (excel) [awaiting 2026 list]

    • Hybrid: The agreement covers APC in most of the publisher's hybrid journals, including Cell Press journals. See the tab CH and CPH in the excel sheet, or use Find participating journals (applies only to hybrid)
      Exceptions: Certain titles owned by Elsevier, academic associations, and Lancet are not part of the agreement.
    • Gold: 15% discount on APC in pure open access journals; see the tab Fully gold in the excel sheet. APC after discount must be covered with personal funds.
  • Expenses beyond the APC, such as extra pages or colour illustrations, must be covered with personal funds.
  • Licences: Articles are published under a CC licence where the author retains the rights. This agreement allows publication under CC-BY and CC-BY-NC-ND.
    More information from the publisher: End user reuse for content published by Elsevier
  • Workflow for authors:
    - Elsevier's author journey (hybrid) (pdf)
    - Elsevier's author journey (gold/pure OA journals) (pdf)
  • More information on openscience.no: Elsevier agreement

Frontiers (discount only)

  • Agreement period: 2026
  • 10% discount on APC.
  • APC after discount must be covered with personal funds. The same applies to any expenses beyond the APC, such as extra pages or colour illustrations.
  • The corresponding author must be affiliated with Ahus, and you must state Ahus as the institutional affiliation when submitting the manuscript. Please use your Ahus email address. Your affiliation with Ahus will be confirmed by the library.
  • Only articles in categories A and B are included in the agreement:
    • A category: Clinical Trial, Hypothesis & Theory, Methods, Original Research, Policy and Practice Reviews, Review, Systematic Review, Study Protocol, Technology and Code, Registered Report.
    • B category: Brief Research Report, Case Report, Community Case Study, Conceptual Analysis, Curriculum Instruction and Pedagogy, Mini Review, Perspective, Policy Brief.
  • The library will receive the invoice; you can provide a cost centre to the library.
  • Frontiers and Akershus University Hospital form open access publishing agreement (frontiersin.org)
  • Frontiers Journal List 2025 (excel) [awaiting 2026 list]

MDPI (discount only)

  • Agreement period: 2026
  • 15% discount on APC.
  • APC after discount must be covered with personal funds. The same applies to any expenses beyond the APC, such as extra pages or colour illustrations.
  • The corresponding author must be affiliated with Ahus.
  • The corresponding author will receive the invoice.
  • MDPI Journal List

Medical Journals of Sweden (MJS) (discount only)

  • Agreement period: 2025-2026
  • 8% discount on APC.
  • APC after discount must be covered with personal funds. The same applies to any expenses beyond the APC, such as extra pages or colour illustrations.
  • The corresponding author must be affiliated with Ahus, and you must state Ahus as the institutional affiliation when submitting the manuscript. Please use your Ahus email address. Your affiliation with Ahus will be confirmed by the library.
  • The library will receive the invoice; you can provide a cost centre to the library.
  • MJS Publishing - Journals

Oxford University Press (OUP)

  • Agreement period: 2025-2027
  • The date the article is accepted for publication is the relevant date for when the article is approved under the agreement.
  • Article types covered: research articles, review articles, brief reports, and case reports.
  • Journals included in the agreement:
  • Expenses beyond the APC, such as extra pages or colour illustrations, must be covered with personal funds.
  • Workflow for authors:
    In this agreement, the corresponding author must select the affiliation "Norwegian Institutions (UNIT members)" when signing the publishing agreement. The author will receive an email from OUP when the article is accepted. In the article itself, the affiliation should still be stated as Ahus. Your affiliation with Ahus will be confirmed by the library.
  • Licences: Articles are published under a CC licence where the author retains the rights.
  • Information from the publisher:
  • Information on openscience.no: Oxford agreement

Sage

  • Agreement period: 2025-2026
  • The corresponding author (the one submitting the article) must be affiliated with Ahus, state Ahus as the institutional address in the article, and select Ahus as the affiliation when submitting the article.
  • The date the article is accepted for publication is the relevant date for when the article is approved under the agreement.
  • Journals included in the agreement:
  • Expenses beyond the APC, such as extra pages or colour illustrations, must be covered with personal funds.
  • Licences: CC-BY is the standard licence choice in the agreement. You must contact Sage if you wish for a different licence.
  • Workflow for authors (ppt).
  • Information from the publisher: Norway (SIKT) | Sage Publishing
  • Information on openscience.no: Open Science | Sage

Springer Nature

  • Agreement period: 2025-2027
  • The corresponding author (the one submitting the article) must be affiliated with Ahus, state Ahus as the institutional address in the article, and select Ahus as the affiliation when submitting the article.
  • Article types covered: original paper, brief communication, continuing education, review paper.
  • The date the article is accepted for publication is the relevant date for when the article is approved under the agreement.
  • Journals included in the agreement:
    • Hybrid (Open Choice): The agreement covers APC in most of the publisher's hybrid journals 2026 (excel), marked Hybrid in column H.
      NB! Although the publisher is called Springer Nature, the agreement does not apply to Nature titles.

    • Gold (Springer Open): 10% discount on APC in pure open-access journals from Springer and BMC 2025 (excel).
      • No discount on Nature or Palgrave titles.
      • APC after discount must be covered with personal funds. If you receive a message during submission stating "open access at no cost to you," unfortunately, that is not correct.

Taylor & Francis

  • Agreement period: 2025-2026
  • The corresponding author (the one submitting the article) must be affiliated with Ahus, state Ahus as the institutional address in the article.
  • The date the article is accepted for publication is the relevant date for when the article is approved under the agreement.
  • Journals included in the agreement:
    • Hybrid (Open Select): The agreement covers APC in most of the publisher's hybrid journals 2026 (excel).
    • Gold (T&F Open): 15% discount on APC in the publisher's pure open access journals 2026 (excel). APC after discount must be covered with personal funds. The corresponding author will receive the invoice.

Wiley - no agreement

Ahus has no agreement with Wiley for 2025 and 2026.

Sikt has negotiated a publish and read agreement with Wiley for 2026, but Ahus is not part of this agreement as we believe it is too expensive for Ahus and overpriced compared to similar agreements that consortia in other countries have with Wiley.
Several other Norwegian institutions have entered into agreements with Wiley for 2026.

Publishing without an agreement in Wiley journals:

Since we do not have any agreement with Wiley, you will not have the entire or part of the publishing fee covered in any of Wiley's journals.

For hybrid journals, the option now is to publish closed (often referred to as "subscription based") and self-archive, i.e., upload an accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript - AAM) of the manuscript in the National Research Archive (NVA). However, to be able to self-archive/upload the manuscript version, you must include a text the first time you submit the manuscript, to inform the publisher that you must comply with the requirements for open access for research funded by, among others, the Research Council and the EU. The text that must be included can be found in the section on "Research Council's requirements for Open Access" (just above).
If you still choose to publish open access in a hybrid journal, the publishing fee must be fully covered with personal funds.

Publishing fees in pure open access journals (gold journals) from Wiley must be fully covered with personal funds, as there is no longer any discount on the publishing fee.

Please contact the library if you have any questions.

The Research Council has required self-archiving of scientific articles for all projects it fully or partially funds since 2009. The aim is to ensure immediate open access, meaning that self-archiving occurs simultaneously with the article's publication in a journal. For projects announced from 2021 onwards, the minimum requirement is that the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is made available immediately in an open archive, under a CC BY licence and with no embargo.

Ahus employees can now self-archive in the National Knowledge Archive (NVA). The library is working on establishing routines for this. Remember to keep the full-text version (Author Accepted Manuscript - AAM) of your articles for self-archiving purposes. When you upload files to the NVA, the library will check which version can be made available and if so, when.

Journal/publisher policies and requirements for self-archiving: Open policy finder

Find Relevant Journals:

Paste in the title/abstract/keywords and receive suggestions for journals that publish articles on the same or related topics.

Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE)
Based on data from PubMed. Paste in the title and/or abstract. Look for the labels "Medline-indexed" and "High-quality open access".

Edanz Journal Selector
Note! Requires registration/subscription after performing some searches.
Paste in the abstract or search with keywords. Based on data from freely available sources.

Journal Guide (American Journal Experts)
Presumably based on data from freely available sources. Paste in the title/abstract.

Enago Open Access Journal Finder
Paste in the abstract. Only open access journals.

PubMed PubReMiner
Used to analyse results in PubMed. Enter the title/topic/search or a group of PMIDs (article numbers), and a table will be generated showing which subject terms, journals, etc., appear in the references.

Manuscript Matcher / Master Journal List (Clarivate)
Based on data from Web of Science. Paste in the title/abstract.
Free to use, but requires registration (same login as in Web of Science/My EndNoteWeb).

EndNote Manuscript Matcher (requires EndNote + login):
Guidance created by the University Library of Bergen
Combination of a group of references in EndNote or an EndNote-generated reference list in Word along with the title and abstract.

Find Relevant Journals from a Specific Publisher:

Elsevier Journal Finder
Only journals from Elsevier. Paste in the title/abstract/keywords.

IEEE Publication Recommender (technology, image processing, etc.)
Paste in keywords/title or abstract.

Sage Journal Recommender
Only journals from Sage. Paste in the title and keywords and select any relevant subject area.

SpringerLink | Find the Right Journal for You
Paste in the abstract and any keywords.

Taylor & Francis Journal Suggester
Only journals from Taylor & Francis. Paste in the abstract.

Wiley Journal Finder (beta)
Only journals from Wiley. Paste in the title and abstract.

Last updated 5/29/2026