Allocation of Funds and Budgeting

Principles for awarding funds

• Provided the OA Fund is not yet exhausted, all applications will receive funding provided they fulfil all the general and format-specific funding criteria.
• If applications do not meet all the general and format-specific funding criteria, a consultation should take place with the applicant and/or experts from the Open Research working group before a final funding decision is taken.
• In the interests of the Weizenbaum Institute’s active promotion of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, once 75% of the fund budget has been exhausted, preference will be given to OA publications by doctoral and postdoctoral researchers.
• Additional, optional criteria for ensuring a fair distribution of funds include paying attention to a balance of funding between all disciplines at the WI and, as far as possible, a balance in terms of gender equality and diversity aspects among the funded researchers.

Administrative procedures and budgeting

The central OA Publication Fund is administered by the Research Management Department within the WI’s science support services. Information about the awarded funds is to be delivered to the Open Research working group every three to six months, and included in annual reports and delivered to the Institute Council so that the funding criteria and practice can be reflected on and evaluated on an ongoing basis. The experts of the Open Research working group act as an expert advisory committee for the Publication Fund. The funding criteria are reviewed and, where necessary, updated regularly – and in good time, particularly in the early phase of the fund’s operation – with a particular focus on research policy conditions for publication funding, institution-specific requirements and the efficiency of the awarding practice. A comprehensive review will take place no later than the end of the initial establishment phase.

In principle, applications will be processed and approved in the order in which they arrive until the funds for the funding year/part-year in question are exhausted (for further details see also “Principles for awarding funds”). It is anticipated that the central OA Publication Fund will be able to invest up to €30,000 per year to fund OA publications (or a proportion of this for shorter funding periods, in particular 2025).