Share of publicly accessible scientific publications from various Swiss universities and research institutes between 2020 and 2024. Institutions with subject areas that publish primarily with national publishers, where open access is not yet standard practice in some cases, find it more difficult to achieve a high share. (Graphic: Eawag, data: Swiss Open Access MonitorFor years, Eawag has been committed to ensuring that its research findings are "open access" - in other words, accessible free of charge. Within the Swiss higher education landscape, its proportion of scientific publications that are open access is therefore among the highest. Trend in accessibility of Eawag publications over time. The proportion of publicly accessible publications has increased significantly in recent years thanks to systematic promotion. Gold open access stands for publications in scientific journals that are completely open to the public, but often charge authors high publication fees. In the case of journals with hybrid open access, only individual articles are freely accessible. Green open access refers to articles that are not publicly accessible through the publisher, but are available as secondary publications on platforms of the institutions such as DORA, although usually only after an embargo period of several months or years. (Graphic: Eawag, data: Swiss Open Access Monitor) How can our wastewater be cleaned even better? Where do we need to take action in order to protect endangered biodiversity most effectively? And how is climate change affecting the water cycle? In most cases, it is public funding that enables scientific institutions, such as the aquatic research institute Eawag, to find answers to such questions. If the knowledge gained is published with "open access", it is immediately accessible to all’online free of charge for the direct benefit of everyone. Other scientists can build on this knowledge in their own research, and experts and authorities can access the latest insights without having to obtain access to expensive specialist journals, as used to be the standard.
More than 87% open access
Eawag has been promoting open access for many years and has been making its scientific publications available on the DORA platform (Digital Object Repository at Eawag) since 2016. "More than 87% of Eawag’s scientific publications in the period from 2020 to 2024 are publicly accessible," says Lothar Nunnenmacher, head of the library of Eawag and the three other research institutions of the ETH Domain, Lib4RI, which developed and operates DORA. "This is a top figure within the ETH Domain and also compared to other Swiss universities."
