A significant expansion of Open Access (OA) publications has been internationally observed in recent years, as well the gradual prevalence of such policies in universities and research institutions. These policies aim to encourage and motivate researchers to publish their research outputs in OA and to cover the Article Processing Charges (APCs). It is remarkable that since 2009, in accordance with the requirements set by the European Commission, as well as by librarian and university associations, academic institutions adopt OA funding policies via their Libraries, aiming to cover partly or fully the APCs for their members.

In this paper the criteria and provisions of an OA policy in a large-scale university such as NKUA will be discussed. The suggested policy is based on data derived from the two acclaimed bibliographic databases “Scopus” and “Web of Science”. More specifically, the paper presents: a) the statistics of OA publications from NKUA members during a three-year period (2019-2021), b) the APCs policies of major publishing houses as well as the transformation agreements of Hellenic Academic Libraries Link (HEAL Link) and c) the Universities' funding policies worldwide. Such a policy is expected to act as a practical reward manifestation for researchers willing to adopt and embrace Open Science (OS) principles, with considerable benefits for society.