Most major research funders now have a mandate for outputs to be made open access. If the journal of your choosing does not provide an open access option or sets an embargo to provide open access, there are alternative ways to provide immediate or delayed open access to your publication.  

What is an embargo? 

An embargo is a period during which nobody has access to your publication unless they pay for it via the publisher (or have access because their institution pays for a subscription). When you upload a digital copy of your publication in an online repository (Green OA), the publisher usually imposes an embargo period. Typical embargo periods are 6 months for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and 12 months for HSS (humanities and social sciences). You can check the required embargo period for a specific journal via Sherpa Romeo which offers a journal-by-journal overview of publisher self-archiving policies.

When your publisher imposes an embargo that you or your funder does not agree with. You have following options to shorten or eliminate the embargo:  

1. 1. Use the Open Access provision in the Belgian copyright law
   2. Supplement your publishers contract with an amendment 
   3. Use the Rights Retention Strategy

You can find more information on the different strategies in hte tips linked above.