Foreword

Accréditation Sans Frontières publishes its standards for free. That statement has always been true. What has been missing is a clear, legally grounded statement of what “free” actually means in practice — what any person, facility, researcher, government, or training provider may do with an ASF standard, what requires permission, and what is always reserved.

The absence of this clarity creates real problems. A hospital quality team that wants to print the criteria and use them in staff training does not know whether they need permission. A university researcher who wants to reproduce a criterion in a published paper does not know what attribution is required. A government agency that wants to adapt the standards for national use does not know whether adaptation is permitted. This document answers all of those questions.

This policy is grounded in the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003), and the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021), which together define the global standard for what open access to scientific and technical knowledge means. ASF’s position as a standards body that develops knowledge for the public benefit places it squarely within the scope of those frameworks [1–4].

As a French-registered organisation, ASF’s intellectual property rights are governed by the Code de la propriété intellectuelle (CPI). The licences described in this policy are designed to be consistent with CPI requirements while maximising the usefulness of ASF standards to the facilities, patients, and health systems they serve.

1. Scope

This policy covers all intellectual property created, commissioned, or published by ASF, including:

• Published organisational standards (Hospital, Ambulatory Clinic, Long-Term Care, Primary Health Clinic, Fitness & Wellness, Telemedicine, Home Care)
• The Surveyor Training Standard and Training & Education Standards
• The Methodology Manual (ASF-MAN-001) and all governance documents in the ASF Document Library
• Self-assessment tools, facility classification questionnaires, and guidance documents (CC BY-NC 4.0)
• Patient information booklets, patient safety posters, and hospital wayfinding signage
• The ASF website content at france-asf.fr
• The ASF name, logo, and certification marks

It does not cover works created independently by ASF-accredited facilities using ASF standards as a reference — those works belong to the facility that created them. It does not cover the underlying evidence — peer-reviewed literature, WHO guidelines, and other cited sources — which are governed by their own licences and publishers.

2. Published Standards — Licence

ASF’s published organisational standards, Surveyor Training Standard, Training & Education Standards, and Methodology Manual are published under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence.

Creative Commons licences are irrevocable: once content is published under CC BY-NC 4.0 or CC BY 4.0, that licence cannot be withdrawn for material already published under it. If ASF were to cease operations or change its licensing policy, all standards already published remain available under the licence under which they were issued. The NonCommercial restriction applies to the ASF-authored content. It does not apply to the facility’s own quality improvement work or to research publications in subscription journals — using an ASF criterion as a reference in a study published in a fee-access journal is permitted. The commercial restriction covers selling the standard itself, or building a commercial product whose primary value derives from reproducing ASF criteria.

3. Patient Information Booklets, Posters and Signage

ASF’s patient-facing materials — the 152 Patient Information Booklets, the patient safety poster series, and the hospital wayfinding signage — are published under a more permissive licence: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Under CC BY 4.0, any person or organisation may print, reproduce, translate, adapt, and distribute these materials for any purpose — including commercial use — provided the ASF attribution is retained and any adaptations are clearly identified as adapted from the original. The rationale: patient health information is most useful when it reaches the widest possible audience, and a restriction on commercial printing or translation would reduce that reach without a countervailing benefit to ASF.

Translation of patient materials is specifically encouraged. Any organisation that translates ASF patient materials into a language not already covered by ASF is invited to share the translation with ASF for review and potential publication on the ASF website, with full attribution to the translating organisation.

4. The ASF Name, Logo and Certification Marks

The following marks are reserved and may not be reproduced, adapted, or used without written permission from ASF:

• The name “Accréditation Sans Frontières” and its abbreviation “ASF” when used in a context that could imply a formal relationship with, or endorsement by, ASF
• The ASF logo (the triangular coin device and logotype) in any form
• The ASF Accredited mark — the certification mark issued to accredited facilities — which may be used only by facilities holding a current, valid ASF accreditation in accordance with the ASF Accreditation Process Guide
• The ISQua EEA mark — which ASF intends to display only upon successful ISQua EEA evaluation
• Any variation or combination of the above that could reasonably be confused with an official ASF mark

Facilities that hold a current ASF accreditation may use the ASF Accredited mark on their own materials in accordance with the terms set out in the Facility Participation Agreement and the Understanding Your Accreditation guide. The mark must be used in the provided format, at a minimum size, and must not be modified. It must not be used after accreditation expires, lapses, or is withdrawn.

5. Adaptation and National Adoption

Governments, national health ministries, and national accreditation bodies that wish to adopt or adapt ASF standards for national use are encouraged to do so. The CC BY-NC 4.0 licence permits adaptation for non-commercial government use. The following conditions apply:

• Attribution: The adapted standard must state clearly that it is “adapted from the ASF [Standard Name] (ASF-[CODE]-vN), published by Accréditation Sans Frontières under CC BY-NC 4.0.”
• No implied ASF endorsement: The adapted standard may not state or imply that it has been endorsed, reviewed, or certified by ASF unless ASF has separately confirmed this in writing.
• Notification: Organisations that adapt ASF standards for national use are requested (but not required) to notify ASF at info@accreditation.ge, so that ASF can maintain awareness of adaptations and offer to review the adapted version for alignment with the evidence base.
• Commercial adaptation: Where a national accreditation body wishes to charge fees for accreditation against an adapted ASF standard, a commercial licensing agreement with ASF is required. Contact info@accreditation.ge to discuss terms.

6. Translation Policy

ASF publishes standards in English and Georgian. The English text is the controlling version in cases of discrepancy between the English and Georgian editions. In all other published translations, the English version prevails. This controlling-version rule is stated on the title page of every ASF standard.

Translation of ASF standards into other languages is permitted under CC BY-NC 4.0, subject to the following requirements:

• The translation must state on its title page: “Translation of [Document Name] (ASF-[CODE]-vN). The English-language original is the controlling version. This translation has not been reviewed or endorsed by Accréditation Sans Frontières.”
• The translation must not alter the substantive content of any criterion — a translation that changes the meaning of a criterion is an adaptation, not a translation, and must comply with Section 5 above.
• Organisations that produce translations are encouraged to submit them to ASF for review. Translations that ASF reviews and endorses will be published on the ASF website with attribution to the translating organisation.

7. Citation Format

When citing an ASF standard in a research publication, policy document, or other formal work, the following citation format applies:

8. Open Science Commitment

Consistent with the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (2021), ASF commits to the following open science practices in its standards development work:

• Open evidence base: The References & Evidence Base document published alongside each standard cites only publicly accessible sources wherever possible. Where a source is paywalled, ASF provides the full citation to enable access through library services.
• Open comment record: The comment log and response register from each public consultation is published alongside the final standard, so that any reader can trace how each submission influenced (or did not influence) the published text.
• Open revision history: Every published standard carries a version history documenting the changes made at each revision, the grounds for those changes, and the Revision Panel responsible.
• Open data aspiration: ASF intends to publish anonymised aggregate data from accreditation surveys — including criterion-level pass rates across facility categories — as open data on the ASF website, subject to facility consent and data protection requirements. The timeline for this commitment is set out in the Strategic Plan 2026–2029.

8b. Intellectual Property in Consultation Submissions

When a person submits evidence or a proposed revision through the public consultation process, they retain full ownership of the intellectual property in their submission. By submitting, they grant ASF a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce and publish their submission — in whole or in part — in the published standard, the comment log, or the revision file. ASF will attribute submissions to the submitter unless made anonymously. ASF does not acquire exclusive rights over any submitted content; the submitter remains free to publish or use their submission independently. This mirrors the practice used by ISO, WHO, and ISQua for their own consultation processes.

9. Requests and Permissions

For any use not covered by the licences described above — including commercial adaptation, formal licensing for national adoption programmes, co-authorship arrangements, or any other use that requires explicit permission — contact ASF at info@accreditation.ge with subject line “IP Permissions Request”. ASF responds to all permissions requests within 30 days.

For questions about whether a specific use is covered by the CC BY-NC 4.0 or CC BY 4.0 licences, consult the Creative Commons licence deed at creativecommons.org. The CC licence deed is the authoritative statement of what is and is not permitted; this policy is a plain-language guide to how ASF applies that licence to its specific materials.

10. Governing Law and Enforcement

This policy and the licences it describes are governed by French law (Code de la propriété intellectuelle). Any dispute arising from the use of ASF intellectual property that cannot be resolved through direct negotiation will be submitted to the competent courts of Paris, France, as the jurisdiction of ASF’s registered seat.

ASF reserves the right to pursue legal remedies for infringement of its reserved rights — in particular, unauthorised commercial use of published standards, misuse of certification marks, and adaptation without attribution. Infringement should be reported to info@accreditation.ge.

References

1. Budapest Open Access Initiative. Budapest Open Access Initiative. Budapest: OSI; 2002. Available at: budapestopenaccessinitiative.org.
2. Max Planck Society. Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. Berlin: Max Planck Society; 2003.
3. UNESCO. Recommendation on Open Science. Paris: UNESCO; 2021.
4. Creative Commons. CC BY-NC 4.0 Licence Deed. San Francisco: Creative Commons; 2023. Available at: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0.
5. Creative Commons. CC BY 4.0 Licence Deed. San Francisco: Creative Commons; 2023. Available at: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.
6. France. Code de la propriété intellectuelle. Paris: Légifrance; consolidated 2026.
7. World Intellectual Property Organization. Understanding Copyright and Related Rights. Geneva: WIPO; 2016.