Open Access Policy | European Gynecology & Obstetrics

CONTENTS

Scope and purpose
Definitions
Open access model of the Journal
Budapest Open Access Initiative and Berlin Declaration
License, copyright and author rights
Open access coverage by article type
Supplementary materials, datasets and data availability
Self-archiving and green open access
Metadata openness, persistent identifiers and interoperability
Compliance with Plan S and cOAlition S
Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy
Compliance with Horizon Europe and European Research Council mandates
Compliance with other major funder mandates
PubMed Central, Europe PMC and OpenAIRE deposit
Backfile and retrospective open access
Sustainability of the diamond open access model
No-embargo guarantee and evolution clause
Prohibited practices
Annual review and public reporting
Normative references and cross-references

1. SCOPE AND PURPOSE

This Open Access Policy establishes the principles, conditions, and commitments that govern the open-access model adopted by European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO), the official journal of the European Society of Gynecology.

The Policy applies to all content published by the Journal, including original research articles, reviews, case reports, protocols, guidelines, data notes, letters, commentaries, opinion pieces and position papers. It applies to all authors, editors, reviewers and the Publisher.

The purpose of this document is to: (a) declare with precision the open access model adopted by the Journal and its relationship to internationally recognised open access categories; (b) ensure full compliance with the transparency requirements of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Plan S, and the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative; (c) declare conformity with the open access mandates of major public research funders; (d) regulate self-archiving rights, metadata openness and digital deposit obligations; (e) provide a sustainability statement for the diamond open access model.

This Policy is effective from the date of its adoption. It applies to all articles published from that date onwards, as well as retroactively to the Journal's backfile as specified in Section 15. It is subject to annual review in accordance with Section 19.

2. DEFINITIONS

For this Policy, the following definitions apply:

Open Access (OA)

The practice of providing unrestricted online access to peer-reviewed scholarly research at no cost to the reader, in accordance with the principles established by the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002, reaffirmed 2022).

Gold Open Access

A publication model in which the final published version of an article (Version of Record) is made immediately and permanently available on the publisher's platform under an open license at the moment of publication. Gold OA journals may or may not charge Article Processing Charges.

Diamond Open Access (also referred to as Platinum Open Access)

A subset of Gold Open Access in which the journal charges no Article Processing Charges, no submission fees, no page charges, and no subscription fees. The costs of publication are borne by entities other than the authors or readers, typically a scientific society, institutional sponsor, or publisher. Diamond OA is the model adopted by this Journal.

For the avoidance of doubt, this Journal operates under a Diamond Open Access model, which is a specific form of Gold Open Access that imposes no charges on authors or readers. All references to "open access" in this Policy shall be understood to refer to the Diamond Open Access model unless otherwise specified.

Green Open Access (Self-archiving)

The practice by which authors deposit a version of their manuscript in a repository (institutional, disciplinary, or general-purpose) to make it freely accessible. Green OA coexists with the primary publication on the publisher's platform and involves specific provisions regarding which version may be deposited, where, and under what conditions.

Hybrid Open Access

A publication model used by subscription-based journals that offer authors the option to make individual articles open access upon payment of an Article Processing Charge, while the remainder of the journal's content remains behind a subscription paywall. This Journal does not adopt this model.

Manuscript versions

Submitted Manuscript (SM): the version initially submitted by the authors before peer review. Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM): the final version accepted for publication after peer review, including all revisions resulting from the review process, but before copy-editing, typesetting and formatting by the Publisher. Version of Record (VoR): the final published version of the article, incorporating all editorial enhancements, pagination, DOI assignment and the Journal's typographic layout.

Article Processing Charge (APC)

A fee charged to authors or their institutions by a publisher to cover the costs of processing, reviewing, editing and publishing an article in an open access format.

Embargo period

A period of time following publication during which access to the full text of an article is restricted. The Journal applies a zero-day embargo period.

3. OPEN ACCESS MODEL OF THE JOURNAL

European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) operates under a diamond open access model. This means that:

(a) All articles published by the Journal are immediately and permanently available in full text on the Journal's official website (egojournal.eu) at the moment of publication, without any access restriction, registration requirement, subscription or paywall.

(b) No Article Processing Charge, submission fee, page charge, color charge or any other financial burden is imposed on authors, their institutions or their funders as a condition of submission, peer review, editorial processing or publication. For transparency, the Journal maintains a separate Article Processing Charges Policy, which documents the current absence of author-facing charges and the conditions under which any future change to this model would be governed.

(c) No subscription fee, access fee or registration requirement is imposed on readers, libraries or institutions for access to any content published by the Journal.

(d) The embargo period applied by the Journal is zero days: public access to the full text of every article is granted at the very moment of online publication, including Epub ahead of print.

(e) All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Authors retain full copyright of their works. This license applies to all original content of the Journal; third-party materials included in an article may be subject to separate license conditions, as specified in Section 7. Detailed provisions on copyright, licensing, and author rights are set out in the Copyright and Licensing Policy.

The Journal's open access model is classified as Gold Open Access under the DOAJ taxonomy and as Diamond Open Access under the economic classification, as no charges are levied on either the author or the reader side. The model is fully aligned with the cOAlition S Route 1 for full compliance with Plan S.

The Journal's open access model is compliant with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, in particular the provisions on access conditions, author fees and other revenue sources.

The Journal is committed to the principle of non-discriminatory global access: no geographic, institutional, economic or other barrier shall restrict any person's ability to read, download, print, copy, distribute, search, link to, crawl or otherwise use the content published by the Journal, subject only to the terms of the applicable Creative Commons license.

4. BUDAPEST OPEN ACCESS INITIATIVE AND BERLIN DECLARATION

European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) formally endorses and adopts the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI, 2002; reaffirmed with the BOAI20 recommendations of 2022) and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003).

Consistent with the BOAI definition, the Journal ensures that users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution is the requirement to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited, as expressed through the CC BY 4.0 license.

Consistent with the Berlin Declaration, the Journal requires that its published content constitute a complete version of the work, together with all supplemental materials, deposited in at least one online repository maintained by an institution committed to open access, unrestricted distribution, interoperability, and long-term archiving.

For the Berlin Declaration requirement to deposit in at least one online repository maintained by an institution committed to open access, the Journal designates the PKP Private LOCKSS Network (PKP PN), operated by the Public Knowledge Project, as a conforming long-term archiving repository. PKP PN provides distributed, redundant preservation of the Journal’s complete published record across a decentralized network of participating libraries, ensuring permanent, openly accessible archiving consistent with the Berlin Declaration’s requirements. Technical provisions for PKP PN and other preservation services are set out in the Digital Preservation Policy.

5. LICENSE, COPYRIGHT AND AUTHOR RIGHTS

All articles published by the Journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Under this license, any person may share (copy and redistribute in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform and build upon) the material for any purpose, including commercial use, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original authors, a link to the license is provided, and an indication of any changes made is included.

Authors retain full copyright of their published works. The Journal does not require the transfer of copyright as a condition of publication. Upon acceptance, authors grant the Journal a non-exclusive, irrevocable license to publish the article under the terms of CC BY 4.0. This arrangement is consistent with the DOAJ requirement that copyright terms must not contradict the licensing terms.

The CC BY 4.0 license is applied uniformly to all published content without modification or supplementary conditions. The Journal does not add to or adapt the standard terms of the Creative Commons license in any manner. The license attaches to the Version of Record at the moment of publication and is irrevocable.

Author rights by manuscript version are as follows: (a) Submitted Manuscript - the authors retain all rights and may deposit this version in any repository, on any personal or institutional website, or on any preprint server at any time without restriction; (b) Author Accepted Manuscript - the authors retain all rights and may deposit this version in any repository or on any website at any time without embargo; (c) Version of Record - published under CC BY 4.0, may be deposited, shared and reused by anyone under the terms of the license. Detailed provisions are contained in the Copyright and Licensing Policy and the Preprint Policy.

The CC BY 4.0 license, copyright holder and license URL (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) shall be displayed on each article's landing page and in the full text of each article, including PDF, HTML and XML versions where available. This requirement is consistent with the DOAJ standard for article-level license display.

6. OPEN ACCESS COVERAGE BY ARTICLE TYPE

The Journal's open access model and CC BY 4.0 license apply to all published content without exception. This includes:

(a) Peer-reviewed research content: Original Articles, Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses, Narrative Reviews, Protocols, Guidelines and Consensus Statements, Case Reports and Case Series, Data Notes.

(b) Non-peer-reviewed editorial content: Letters to the Editor, Commentaries and Perspectives, Opinion Corner, Position Papers, Editorials, Errata, Corrigenda, Retraction Notices, Expressions of Concern.

There is no license differentiation between article types. Editorials, letters, commentaries and other non-research content are published under the same CC BY 4.0 license as original research articles. This ensures uniform reuse conditions across the entire content of the Journal and simplifies compliance for indexers, repositories and readers. Exceptions may apply to third-party materials included in any article type, as specified in Section 7.

7. SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS, DATASETS AND DATA AVAILABILITY

Supplementary materials published alongside an article on the Journal's platform - including additional tables, figures, appendices, multimedia files and code - are published under the same CC BY 4.0 license that applies to the article. Authors who include supplementary materials must ensure that they hold the necessary rights to license them under CC BY 4.0, or that the materials fall within an applicable exception.

Third-party materials (such as figures, images, scales or content reproduced from other publications) are not covered by the article's CC BY 4.0 license unless expressly stated. Where third-party material is included under a specific permission or a more restrictive license, this must be clearly indicated in the caption or credit line. Authors are responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions and for ensuring that any rights statement is accurate and consistent with the applicable license.

Research datasets deposited in external repositories, as required by the Journal's Data Availability and Sharing Policy, are subject to the licensing terms of the respective repositories. The Journal recommends that authors license deposited datasets under CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain Dedication) or CC BY 4.0, in accordance with the FAIR Data Principles, to maximize reusability. The Data Availability Statement published in the article must specify the license under which the dataset is made available, as indicated by the hosting repository.

All empirical research articles must include a Data Availability Statement indicating where the underlying data can be found and under what conditions they are accessible. Where no datasets are associated with the article, or where access is restricted for ethical, legal, privacy or proprietary reasons, this must be explicitly stated. Articles reporting human subjects research must confirm whether data sharing is consistent with the consent obtained from participants. This requirement applies irrespective of whether data are publicly available and is consistent with UKRI, Wellcome Trust and Horizon Europe funder requirements. Detailed provisions are contained in the Data Availability and Sharing Policy.

8. SELF-ARCHIVING AND GREEN OPEN ACCESS

European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) operates as a fully open-access journal under a diamond model with CC BY 4.0 licensing. Consequently, the self-archiving permissions granted by the Journal are more permissive than those of subscription-based or hybrid journals. The following provisions apply:

8.1 Submitted Manuscript

Authors may deposit the Submitted Manuscript in any repository (institutional, disciplinary, general-purpose or preprint server), on any personal or institutional website, or on any social academic network, at any time before, during or after the peer review process, without any restriction or embargo. Authors are encouraged to update the preprint record upon publication with a link to the published Version of Record and its DOI. Detailed provisions on preprint deposit are contained in the Preprint Policy.

8.2 Author Accepted Manuscript

Authors may deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in any repository or on any website immediately upon acceptance, without embargo. The AAM may be deposited under the CC BY 4.0 license or in accordance with the specific requirements of the receiving repository, provided that such conditions are compatible with the CC BY 4.0 license applied to the published article. Authors are requested to include the following acknowledgment when depositing the AAM: "This is the Author Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) [DOI]. The Version of Record is available at [URL]." This request does not constitute a condition, and its omission does not invalidate the deposit.

8.3 Version of Record

The Version of Record (VoR) is published under CC BY 4.0. It may be deposited, shared, redistributed and reused by anyone - including the authors, their institutions, libraries, funders and third parties - in any repository, on any website, through any channel and for any purpose, subject only to the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license (attribution). There is no embargo on the VoR. The VoR depositable in repositories is identical to the VoR published on the Journal's platform.

8.4 Accepted repositories

Authors and their institutions may deposit the version or versions permitted under this policy in any suitable institutional, subject-specific, general-purpose, national, or funder-designated open repository, subject to the repository’s scope, eligibility, submission, and licensing requirements. These repositories include, without limitation, institutional repositories and Zenodo. Where the applicable eligibility requirements are met, manuscripts may also be deposited in PubMed Central (PMC) or Europe PMC. Content deposited in compatible repositories may be indexed or harvested by OpenAIRE. Preprints may be posted separately on recognized preprint servers, including medRxiv, bioRxiv, and Research Square, in accordance with the Journal’s Preprint Policy.

Posting on academic social networks (such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu) is permitted as an additional dissemination channel and is not restricted by this Policy. However, it does not constitute repository deposit for funder compliance purposes. It cannot substitute for deposit in a recognized open repository as required by funders such as NIH, Wellcome Trust, UKRI and Horizon Europe.

8.5 Rights retention statement

Authors funded by organizations that require a rights retention statement (including cOAlition S funders, Wellcome Trust and UKRI) are fully supported in including such statements in their submissions. The Journal's licensing model (CC BY 4.0, author copyright retention, zero embargo) is natively compatible with all current rights-retention policies, and no publisher addendum or waiver is required.

9. METADATA OPENNESS, PERSISTENT IDENTIFIERS AND INTEROPERABILITY

The Journal is committed to maximizing the discoverability, citability and machine-readability of its published content through the following provisions:

9.1 Open metadata

Article-level bibliographic metadata (including title, authors, abstract, affiliations, keywords, references, funding information, license and DOI) are deposited with Crossref and made freely available under a CC0 1.0 Universal waiver (Public Domain Dedication). Metadata are released at the moment of online publication without embargo. The Journal's metadata are harvestable via the Crossref REST API, OAI-PMH and the Journal's own metadata endpoints.

9.2 Persistent identifiers

The Journal uses the following persistent identifiers: (a) DOI (Digital Object Identifier, Crossref) for every published article, including corrections, retractions and expressions of concern; (b) ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID), strongly recommended for all submitting authors, with the objective of progressive adoption towards mandatory provision in line with evolving requirements from indexing services; (c) ROR (Research Organization Registry) for institutional affiliations where available, in compliance with the Crossref and OpenAIRE metadata standards; (d) ISSN (eISSN 2710-2580) for journal-level identification.

9.3 Interoperability and machine-readability

Published articles are made available in JATS XML (Journal Article Tag Suite) for structured ingestion by databases, archives and discovery services. Full-text XML and metadata are supplied to Crossref, Google Scholar and, upon completion of the applicable agreements, to PubMed, PubMed Central, Scopus and Web of Science. The Journal's platform supports OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) for automated metadata exchange with aggregators and institutional repositories.

10. COMPLIANCE WITH PLAN S AND COALITION S

European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) is designed to comply with Plan S and the cOAlition S implementation requirements via Route 1 (publication in a fully open-access journal or platform). The following conditions are met or will be verifiably in progress:

(a) The Journal is a fully open access journal: 100% of published content is freely and immediately available at the moment of publication.

(b) All articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0), which is the license specified by Plan S as fully compliant for research articles.

(d) No embargo period is applied.

(e) Article-level bibliographic metadata are deposited with CrossRef under CC0 and are immediately and openly available.

(f) The Journal does not charge Article Processing Charges. Authors funded by cOAlition S members incur zero publication costs when publishing in this Journal.

(g) The Journal supports rights retention: authors may include the cOAlition S rights retention statement in their submissions without any conflict with the Journal's licensing terms.

The cOAlition S Strategy 2026-2030 specifically endorses diamond open access as a sustainable, equitable model for scholarly communication. European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) is aligned with this strategic vision and with the recommendations of the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access and the DIAMAS project.

The Journal is in the process of applying for inclusion in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which is a standard verification step for Plan S Route 1. Full Route 1 qualification will be confirmed upon completion of DOAJ inclusion and any applicable technical verification requirements. Until that point, authors funded by cOAlition S members may achieve compliance via the repository route, supported by the Journal's zero-embargo self-archiving provisions (Section 8), thereby satisfying the Plan S requirement for immediate open access without embargo under CC BY 4.0.

11. COMPLIANCE WITH THE NIH PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY

The 2024 NIH Public Access Policy (NOT-OD-25-047), as revised by NOT-OD-25-101 and effective from 1 July 2025, applies to Author Accepted Manuscripts accepted for publication on or after that date that result, in whole or in part, from NIH funding. The Policy requires the Author Accepted Manuscript to be submitted to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance for publication and made publicly available without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication.

European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) supports authors and their institutions in complying with the NIH Public Access Policy. As a diamond open access journal publishing its articles under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), with author copyright retention and no embargo:

(a) The Journal does not charge Article Processing Charges, submission fees, deposit fees, or any other publication fee to NIH-funded authors. Submission of an Author Accepted Manuscript through the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS) is also free of charge.

(b) The Journal’s author copyright-retention and CC BY 4.0 licensing policies do not conflict with the Government Use License described in NIH supplemental guidance NOT-OD-25-049. The Government Use License constitutes a separate right arising from acceptance of NIH funding and applies to the Author Accepted Manuscript. Compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy does not depend on the application of a particular Creative Commons license.

(c) Until European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) has been formally accepted for participation in PMC and the corresponding NLM agreement and technical deposit workflow have become operational, NIH-funded authors may comply with the Policy by submitting the Author Accepted Manuscript through NIHMS upon acceptance for publication. The Journal expressly authorizes such deposit and its public availability in PMC without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication.

The Author Accepted Manuscript may be submitted through NIHMS even though the Journal is not yet a participating PMC journal. The NIHMS submission may be initiated by an author, Principal Investigator, the Publisher, or another authorized third party, but the required approval stages must be completed by an author.

(d) If and when the Journal is accepted for participation in PMC, completes the applicable agreement with the National Library of Medicine and successfully completes PMC’s technical evaluation and production setup, the Publisher will deposit the Final Published Article directly in PMC in the required format for public availability without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication (see Section 14).

NIH-funded authors are encouraged to include the following NIH-recommended statement in the Submitted Manuscript and Author Accepted Manuscript:

“This manuscript is the result of funding in whole or in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is subject to the NIH Public Access Policy. Through acceptance of this federal funding, NIH has been given a right to make this manuscript publicly available in PubMed Central upon the Official Date of Publication, as defined by NIH.”

The Journal will not remove or modify this statement. Authors must also include the applicable NIH funding acknowledgment and award information required by the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

12. COMPLIANCE WITH HORIZON EUROPE AND EUROPEAN RESEARCH COUNCIL MANDATES

Horizon Europe (2021-2027) mandates full and immediate open access to all peer-reviewed scientific publications resulting from funded research, as specified in Article 17 and Annex 5 of the Model Grant Agreement (MGA). The European Research Council (ERC) applies the same requirements to its grants.

The requirements of Article 17 MGA are that, at the latest at the time of publication: (a) a machine-readable electronic copy of the published version or the final peer-reviewed manuscript accepted for publication is deposited in a trusted repository for scientific publications; (b) immediate open access is provided via the repository under the latest available version of the CC BY license; (c) information is given via the repository about any research output or tools needed to validate the conclusions of the publication.

The Journal is designed to support compliance with all Horizon Europe and ERC open access requirements:

(a) Publication on the Journal's website does not replace the repository deposit required by Article 17 MGA. Authors funded by Horizon Europe or ERC must deposit the Version of Record or the Author Accepted Manuscript in a trusted repository (such as an institutional repository, Zenodo, or an OpenAIRE-compatible repository) at the latest at the time of publication. The Journal permits and actively supports such deposit without embargo. The VoR is published under CC BY 4.0 and may be deposited freely in any trusted repository.

(b) No embargo applies to any version of the manuscript.

(c) The Journal's JATS XML metadata, including funding information and data availability statements, ensures machine-readability.

(d) Authors funded under Horizon Europe or ERC grants are not required to pay any APC or other fee to comply with their funder mandate.

Beneficiaries of Horizon Europe and ERC grants are advised to acknowledge their funding in accordance with the relevant provisions of the grant agreement and to verify that the deposited version is registered in the OpenAIRE infrastructure. The Journal's platform metadata are accessible to OpenAIRE harvesting tools.

13. COMPLIANCE WITH OTHER MAJOR FUNDER MANDATES

European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) is designed to ensure native compliance with the open-access mandates of all major international public and charitable research funders. In each case, the Journal's model (CC BY 4.0, zero embargo, author copyright retention, diamond OA) satisfies or exceeds the funder's requirements.

Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust requires that all funded research publications be made freely available from Europe PMC upon publication under CC BY (or CC BY-ND by exception), with a Data Availability Statement. From 1 January 2025, Wellcome funds APCs only for articles published in fully open-access journals indexed in DOAJ. The Journal is fully aligned with these requirements. No APC is required. Authors funded by Wellcome are expected to confirm that the deposited version is available in Europe PMC. Upon completion of the applicable agreement, the articles will be automatically deposited in Europe PMC.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

UKRI requires that peer-reviewed research articles be made immediately available in full text under CC BY (or CC BY-ND by exception) through either a fully open access journal or self-archiving in an institutional repository. The Journal satisfies both routes. Authors funded by UKRI may include the UKRI rights retention statement in their submissions. UKRI also requires a Data Access Statement for all in-scope articles; this is met by the Journal's Data Availability Statement requirement (Section 7).

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

The Gates Foundation Open Access Policy requires immediate open access under CC BY 4.0 for all funded publications, with deposit in PubMed Central or another open repository, and a Data Availability Statement. The Gates Foundation also expects funded manuscripts to be shared as preprints, where appropriate, before or at the time of journal submission, unless there are ethical, safety, or other legitimate reasons not to do so. The Journal is fully aligned with these requirements: no APC is charged, the CC BY 4.0 license enables immediate deposit in PMC and other repositories, and the Journal's preprint and data sharing policies support the Gates preprint and data availability requirements.

Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) and PNRR

Italian national research funding through MUR, including grants under the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR, NextGenerationEU), requires open access to publications funded, in alignment with Horizon Europe provisions (CC BY, zero-embargo, repository deposit). The Journal is fully aligned with these requirements. This provision is particularly relevant to the Journal's European readership in gynecology and obstetrics.

Other funders

The Journal's open access model is compatible with the mandates of the Australian Research Council (ARC), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), and any other funder requiring CC BY, zero embargo and immediate public access. Authors funded by organisations not listed above are encouraged to contact the editorial office for confirmation of compliance with their specific funder mandate.

14. PUBMED CENTRAL, EUROPE PMC AND OPENAIRE DEPOSIT

The Journal's strategic plan includes indexation in PubMed and full-text deposit in PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC. To this end, the Publisher commits to the following:

(a) Upon application to and acceptance by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) for PMC participation, the Publisher will establish a formal deposit agreement with NLM for the automatic submission of the full text of all published articles (Version of Record, JATS XML) to PubMed Central on the date of publication.

(b) Until such agreement is in place, NIH-funded authors and other authors required by their funders to deposit in PMC may self-deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript in PubMed Central through the NIH Manuscript Submission System (NIHMS), at no cost and with no embargo. The Publisher will provide any metadata or files required to facilitate self-deposit upon author request. Note that self-deposit of the Version of Record in PMC requires a formal journal-level agreement with NLM and may not be performed by authors independently.

(c) The Publisher will register all published articles and their metadata with OpenAIRE to ensure discoverability within the European Open Science infrastructure and compliance with Horizon Europe repository requirements.

(d) Upon completion of the applicable agreements, the Publisher will deposit the full text of published articles in Europe PMC to support compliance with the Wellcome Trust, UKRI and other European funder mandates.

(e) The Journal ensures long-term digital preservation of all published open access content through two dedicated services: the PKP Private LOCKSS Network (PKP PN), operated by the Public Knowledge Project, which provides distributed and redundant preservation of the Journal’s complete published record across a decentralized network of participating libraries; and CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS), an internationally recognized dark archive jointly governed by libraries and publishers, which ensures continued public availability of preserved content in the event of publisher cessation or other disruptive events (trigger access). PKP PN fulfills the Berlin Declaration requirement for deposit in a conforming open access repository, as specified in Section 4. These preservation services guarantee that the Journal’s open access commitment is sustained not only at the current moment of publication but also over the long term, independently of the continued operation of the Publisher or its platform. Full technical provisions on preservation services, trigger access conditions, format standards, metadata archiving, and disaster recovery procedures are set out in the Digital Preservation Policy (DPP).

15. BACKFILE AND RETROSPECTIVE OPEN ACCESS

This Policy applies to all articles published by the Journal from the date of its adoption. In addition, the following provisions apply to previously published content (backfile):

(a) All articles published in European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) before the adoption of this Policy have been published under open access conditions with CC BY 4.0 licensing since the Journal's inception as a diamond open access publication. This Policy therefore confirms, rather than modifies, the backfile's open-access status.

(b) The Publisher commits to ensuring continued free access to the full text of all previously published articles on the Journal's platform and through the long-term digital preservation services described in the Digital Preservation Policy.

(c) If any articles in the backfile were published under terms that do not fully conform to the provisions of this Policy, the Publisher will make reasonable efforts to apply the current CC BY 4.0 terms to such content, subject to applicable copyright constraints and author consent.

(d) Backfile content is included in the metadata deposit to CrossRef, DOAJ (upon indexation), Google Scholar and, upon completion of applicable agreements, PubMed Central.

16. SUSTAINABILITY OF THE DIAMOND OPEN ACCESS MODEL

In compliance with the transparency requirements of Plan S, cOAlition S and the DOAJ, the Journal provides the following sustainability statement.

The costs of editorial production, peer review management, copy-editing, typesetting, XML conversion, DOI registration, digital preservation, website hosting and dissemination of European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) are financed by the Publisher, with the institutional support of the European Society of Gynecology (ESG) in its capacity as scientific society holding the editorial brand. The economic relationship between the Publisher and ESG is governed by a Publishing Agreement that guarantees the financial sustainability of the Journal's operations without dependence on author-facing charges.

The diamond open access model adopted by the Journal is consistent with the economic models endorsed by the cOAlition S Strategy 2026-2030, the DIAMAS project recommendations, the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access and the Global Summit on Diamond Open Access (Toluca, 2023). The model reflects the European scholarly community's commitment to an equitable publishing system in which neither authors nor readers bear the direct costs of publication.

The Publisher and ESG periodically review the model's financial sustainability. Any material change to the Journal's economic model, including the possible future introduction of Article Processing Charges, will be governed by the evolution clause set out in Section 17 and the Article Processing Charges Policy.

17. NO-EMBARGO GUARANTEE AND EVOLUTION CLAUSE

17.1 No-embargo guarantee

The Journal guarantees that no embargo period is or will be applied to any article published under the current diamond open access model. All content is freely accessible at the moment of publication. This guarantee applies to online publication, Epub ahead of print and, where applicable, print issue publication. Where the Journal publishes print issues, the print format does not restrict the immediate availability of the online, open-access version. The Journal may charge for printed copies in accordance with DOAJ provisions, provided that 100% of the content remains freely available online.

17.2 Evolution clause

The Publisher recognizes that the Journal's economic model may evolve. If the Journal considers introducing Article Processing Charges, subscription fees or any embargo period, the following conditions shall apply:

(a) The change shall be preceded by a minimum notice period of 6 months, published prominently on the Journal's website and communicated directly to the Editor-in-Chief, the Editorial Board, the European Society of Gynecology, DOAJ and any other indexing service in which the Journal is included.

(b) The notice shall specify the nature, amount and effective date of the proposed charges or restrictions, together with a justification for the change and its impact on authors and readers.

(c) Articles already published under CC BY 4.0 shall remain permanently open access under that license regardless of any subsequent change to the Journal's economic model.

(d) Any introduction of APC shall be accompanied by a waiver policy for authors from low- and middle-income countries in accordance with the Research4Life program classification, and a commitment to editorial independence in accordance with the Editorial Board Charter (EBC).

(e) The editorial firewall between commercial considerations and editorial decisions, as established in the Editorial Policy Statement and the Editorial Board Charter (EBC), shall be maintained regardless of the economic model.

18. PROHIBITED PRACTICES

The Publisher shall not enter into, approve or maintain any agreement or arrangement under its direct control that imposes an embargo, paywall, registration requirement or access restriction on the Journal's open access content. The following practices are, in particular, expressly prohibited:

(a) Imposition of embargo by parties acting under Publisher authority: no entity acting under an agreement with the Publisher (including aggregators, repository operators or distribution partners contracted by the Publisher) may impose an embargo or access restriction on the full text of articles published by the Journal in a manner that conflicts with this Policy.

(b) Removal of open access: no person or entity may remove the CC BY 4.0 license from a published article or replace it with a more restrictive license after publication.

(c) Restriction of self-archiving: the Publisher shall not restrict the right of authors to self-archive any version of their manuscript in accordance with the provisions of Section 8.

(d) Conditional publication: no article may be accepted, prioritized, expedited or otherwise treated differently based on payment, sponsorship, institutional affiliation, geographic origin or any criterion other than scientific merit and compliance with editorial standards.

(e) Misleading access claims: the Journal shall not represent content as open access if it does not meet the conditions set out in this Policy. Bronze access (free to read without an open license) does not constitute open access for this Policy.

19. ANNUAL REVIEW AND PUBLIC REPORTING

This Policy is subject to annual review by the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher, in consultation with the Editorial Board and the European Society of Gynecology. The review shall assess:

(a) Continued compliance with the requirements of DOAJ, Plan S, and the funder mandates listed in Sections 10-13.

(b) The effectiveness and sustainability of the diamond open access model.

(c) Progress towards PubMed Central, Scopus and Web of Science indexation and the implications for open access provisions.

(d) Updates to international standards (COPE, ICMJE, DOAJ, Plan S/cOAlition S, NISO) that may require amendments to this Policy.

(e) Author and reader feedback on the accessibility and usability of published content.

The outcome of the annual review, including any changes to the Policy and key open access metrics (total articles published, repository deposit rates, funder compliance statistics, website access analytics), shall be reported publicly on the Journal's website within the first quarter of each calendar year.

20. NORMATIVE REFERENCES AND CROSS-REFERENCES

20.1 International standards

This Policy is drafted in compliance with the following international standards: Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI, 2002; BOAI20, 2022); Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003); DOAJ - Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (current version); DOAJ Application Form v3.1 (January 2026); Plan S - Principles and Implementation (cOAlition S); cOAlition S Strategy 2026-2030; Action Plan for Diamond Open Access (Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS, ANR); DIAMAS Diamond Open Access Recommendations and Guidelines (2025); Creative Commons - CC BY 4.0 International Licence; FAIR Data Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable); COPE - Committee on Publication Ethics, Core Practices; ICMJE - Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals; NISO - recommended standards for metadata and digital preservation; Crossref - metadata deposit standards; JATS XML - Journal Article Tag Suite.

20.2 Funder policies referenced

NIH Public Access Policy (2024, effective 1 July 2025), NOT-OD-25-047, NOT-OD-25-048, NOT-OD-25-049; Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement, Article 17 and Annex 5; European Research Council Open Access requirements; Wellcome Trust Open Access Policy (updated 1 January 2025); UKRI Open Access Policy (effective 1 April 2022, updated 2024); Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Open Access Policy; MUR/PNRR open access provisions (NextGenerationEU); SNSF, DFG, ANR, ARC, CIHR open access mandates.

20.3 Cross-references to other EGO policy documents

This Policy is part of the editorial policy framework of the European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) and must be read in conjunction with the following documents: Editorial Policy Statement, in particular Sections 8 and 20; Copyright and Licensing Policy; Preprint Policy; Data Availability and Sharing Policy; Article Processing Charges Policy; Editorial Board Charter, in particular the editorial independence and economic model provisions; Artificial Intelligence Policy, for AI-related data deposit provisions; Corrections and Retractions Policy, for the open access status of corrective notices and retractions; Digital Preservation Policy, for long-term preservation of open access content. In the event of any conflict or inconsistency between this Open Access Policy and any other document in the editorial policy framework of the Journal, the provisions of this Policy shall prevail with respect to open access conditions, licensing terms and embargo obligations, unless the conflicting document has been expressly adopted as a superseding instrument by the Publisher and the Editor-in-Chief.