In a letter dated 4 December 2015, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (hereinafter SERI) commissioned swissuniversities (the association of Swiss Higher Education Institutions) to elaborate, with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), a national strategy for Open Access to publications (hereinafter OA). This national OA strategy was formulated by a representative working group led by swissuniversities and was adopted by the plenary assembly of swissuniversities on 31 January 2017.

The Open Access Strategy contains the vision that all publicly funded publications must be freely accessible until 2024. In general, it is desirable that all scientific publications in Switzerland should be available for Open Access by 2024. This vision is based on the current European models. In order to implement this vision, various fields of action have been defined with the aim of reconciling Open Access practices in Switzerland, strengthening negotiations with publishers and the incentives for researchers, as well as examining new types of publications and platforms.
In February 2018, the Plenary Assembly of swissuniversities approved this action plan and the University Council of the Swiss University Conference approved it.
Implementation will now begin under the coordination of swissuniversities, taking into account the autonomy of the universities. The national Open Access Strategy serves as a fundamental instrument for managing the transformation process and optimising the use of resources.