Publish Open Access

One of the ways the WI will fulfil this claim in the initial establishment phase (2022-25) is through systematic support for OA publications. Besides providing advisory services and information events on relevant OA aspects, such as selecting relevant and suitable journals, open licences and identification mechanisms, and transformative consortium agreements, the OA Publication Fund aims to help WI researchers make their publications available openly and without barriers. Through OA publications, WI researchers can both increase their visibility and accelerate the exploitation of their findings in academia and adjacent systems.

Funding Instruments

From spring 2023 onwards, two funding instruments are available: a central OA Publication Fund for all researchers at the WI, and decentralised OA publication funds in the budgets of the individual WI research groups. Both funding paths provide funds to cover publication fees for journal articles (including replication studies, null results papers, registered reports, and papers based on data reuse or with citizen participation) and for previously unpublished OA monographs, textbooks, edited volumes and conference proceedings (article or book processing charges, APCs/BPCs).

Funding for other open formats and research results, such as research software, is possible in principle. The criteria and practices of WI publication funding are based on the current standards of key research funding organisations at national and European level (especially the DFG, the European Commission, cOAlition S) and successful procedures and processes employed by existing OA funding programmes in the scientific community. There are plans to expand the WI OA funding portfolio and add additional measures, in line with demand, in the second establishment phase.

Who will be supported?

The central OA Publication Fund primarily finances publications by WI members that meet the above funding criteria and whose costs cannot be met at research group level. Deviations from the awarding criteria are possible in justified cases.

When OA publications are funded by WI research groups or other WI research units, it is advisable to observe these funding criteria. In the interest of tracking the institute-wide information budget and in line with the recommendations of the German Science and Humanities Council (WR) and the DFG, when funding is provided through this decentralised route, openaccess[at]weizenbaum-institut.de should be notified of the publication fees for each funded OA publication .

Aims of OA publication funding at the WI

These measures make WI OA publication funding an effective instrument for (1) strengthening academic publishing in “its primary function of communicating findings and enabling scholarly discourse”, as emphasized by the DFG in a position paper. Moreover, WI OA publication funding corrects (2) wrong incentives provided by a one-sided, cost-intensive focus of research assessment based on quantitative metrics (especially the journal impact factor [JIF]), thereby making (3) an important contribution to sustainably shaping the OA transformation of the scholarly publishing system in the long term. Finally, the WI’s OA publication funding enables it to (4) play an active role in implementing local and national strategy goals.

Practical advice for applicants

• Please check whether your publication meets the funding criteria. You are also welcome to seek advice in advance on OA publication questions.
• If your publication meets the funding conditions, please complete the online form to apply for funding of publication costs and submit the publisher’s acceptance and price quotation as a PDF document with the form.
• If the total costs for your publication exceed the funding limit, it may be worth enquiring about a discount with the publisher. We will be happy to provide a confirmation letter for this purpose on request.
• You will usually hear within a few weeks of submitting your application whether the fund can finance your article.
• Once you have received a confirmation of funding from us, you can publish the article with the planned publisher, acknowledging your institute affiliation and the funding.
• You will be notified once the invoice has been paid by the WI administrative team.

Invoicing Requirements

If funding has been approved, the WI OA Fund will pay your APC or BPC invoice in full or in part, directly to the publisher.

The invoice must therefore contain the following information:
Billing Address: Weizenbaum Institut e.V., Hardenbergstr. 32, 10623 Berlin

If it is necessary to provide a contact person and telephone number, please indicate:
Julian Vuorimäki, Tel.: +49 30 700 141 012.