New Aug. 2024: check the latest Open Access publishing developments here: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/open_access
Still valid in Aug 2025: SNFS does not pay for articles in Special Issues anymore, see the SNFS News here.
New Feb. 2024: After inquiry directly at SNFS, it is clear that this mostly also applies to Collections, a format that some journals have (e.g. https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/uaar20/collections), here the answer of SNFS
07 Feb 2024: "At the SNSF we use the following definition of special issues: Special issues are published parallel to the regular issues of a scholarly journal. They include articles on one topic. They are advertised as special issues and solicit submissions on this topic. Special issues are in the responsibility of (guest) editors who differ from those of the regular issues.
As far as I can tell by looking at the linked website, the Collections published by Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research are covered by the above definition. Thus, the SNSF is no longer covering APC to publish SNSF-funded research in such special issues.
Best regards, T. Philipp, Scientific Officer
If you are publishing in the context of an SNFS project, check out this webpage for rule you have to respect or go directly toto https://snsf.chronoshub.io/ to request payment of your article processing charges, APC.
We have to ensure free access to all our papers, either via Gold Open Access or via Self-archiving,
as a general rule, we should publish Gold Open Access, but check first if the Swiss University agreement covers the Article Processing Costs (APC) of the selected journal, here: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/open_access/read_and_publish/index_eng.html
This list does not include Copernicus Journals, for which Uni Bern has a specific yearly budget; before submitting to a Copernicus Journal, ask at Open Science (UB) <oafonds@unibe.ch> if there is money left; if you have a corresponding author from the ETH domain, the ACPs will automatically be covered, link.
If you have any doubt about who will pay for your paper, ask Open Science (UB) <oafonds@unibe.ch>
For Self-Archiving, e.g. at Uni Bern via BORIS, most journals have a long embargo period (e.g. 24 months), which is longer than what SNF accepts (6 months). In this case, the only solution to make your work freely available is to deposit your preprint on a preprint server. For the geosciences, the Hydrology group used in the past: https://www.essoar.org, https://eartharxiv.org/.
Copernicus has now a preprint server that can be used independent where your final paper ends up: https://www.egusphere.net. An example is this paper,https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2022/egusphere-2022-921/, where you cannot see from the preprint that the paper was submitted to the HESS journal.
Elsevier also has its own server: https://www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en/). Important: Elsevier now accepts papers with preprints that are hosted anywhere at any time: https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/hosting.
Recommendation: always consider publishing a preprint, except for double-blind review journals
Research data support at UniBern: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/research_data_management/index_eng.html
EuroScienceGateway: https://galaxyproject.org/projects/esg/
Check out the EGU Open Science and Data Help Desk