Open Access

The open access icon represents the global movement making research publications freely available online without subscription barriers or paywalls. This symbol identifies content licensed for free reading, downloading, and often reuse, embodying the principle that publicly-funded research should be publicly accessible. The unlocked padlock design has become the universal indicator for barrier-free scholarly communication across disciplines.

In academic publishing workflows, researchers publish in PLOS ONE, eLife, and thousands of other open-access journals ensuring immediate worldwide access. University repositories display this icon on freely accessible theses and working papers, while funding agencies like NIH and Wellcome Trust require open-access publication for grant compliance. Libraries promote open-access alternatives during subscription negotiations, making this icon central to discussions about equitable knowledge distribution.

From a scholarly communication perspective, this icon signifies more than just free access - it represents challenges to commercial publishing models, enables accelerated knowledge dissemination especially during health crises, and supports research equity for scholars without institutional subscriptions. This distinction helps users recognize open access as transformative infrastructure for global research participation.

Open Access is one of 158 icons in Academicons, made by James Walsh and released under Open Font License. It is drawn on a 256 × 512 grid.

Sign in (it's free), then open Get icon, Install with shadcn CLI, and pick your package manager to copy the command. It adds OpenAccessIcon to components/icons/academicons-open-access.tsx: one file, a size prop (24 by default) and every SVG prop, with no icon package.

Copy it as React (from Get icon, or the Code section): a typed OpenAccessIcon component you paste into your project, with no package to install. Only the icons you import reach your bundle. It works in Next.js and any React app.

Open Get icon, then Copy as code, and pick Vue, Svelte, Angular, Solid or Preact; the Code section shows each one too. Every version is one self-contained component with the SVG inside, and SVG and data URL copies are there for plain HTML and CSS.

With Pro, the shadcn.io MCP server lets Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client find the Open Access icon, or any of 158 Academicons icons, and install it from a prompt.

It's drawn in currentColor, so it takes the text color wherever you use it: a class like text-primary recolors it. To bake a color in, set one in Customize before you copy.

Set width and height on the component, or a class like size-6. It's drawn on a 256 × 512 grid, so it stays sharp at any size. Customize also sets the size it exports at, its padding and rotation.

Yes. It follows the text color, so with text-foreground (or any theme token) it changes with your light and dark themes. The icon is a vector, so it needs no separate dark asset.

Next to a visible label it's decoration: add aria-hidden="true" so screen readers skip it. Standing alone, as in an icon button, give the button a name instead, like aria-label="Open Access", so screen readers say what it does.

Yes. OpenAccessIcon passes every SVG prop to the svg element, so <OpenAccessIcon aria-hidden="true" /> works, and so do role="img" with aria-label, or a title child, when it carries meaning on its own.

Yes. Open Get icon, then Download file: SVG for code or design tools like Figma; PNG, WebP or JPEG at 512px; or an ICO favicon with 16, 32 and 48px inside. Each one uses what you set in Customize.

Yes. The Open Font License allows commercial use; the icons can't be sold on their own. The full terms are in the license, linked on this page.

No visible credit is required: Open Font License only asks that you keep the license notice if you ship the icons' source files. Icons installed with the shadcn CLI already start with a comment naming Academicons, James Walsh and the license.

Yes. Copying and downloading it is free, and the shadcn CLI install only needs a free account.

1 other library draws an icon called Open Access. The Other libraries section on this page shows each one, so you can compare them and open the one that fits your style.

Its tags are research, public, publishing, free and unlocked. Each tag page lists the icons that carry it from every library, which is the quickest way to find a match for Open Access in another set.