This year, the German Research Association (DFG) will provide EUR 69,120 for the University of Stuttgart’s Open Access publication funds. Next year, this figure will increase to EUR 84,000. Together with the University of Stuttgart’s own contribution, (2021: EUR 103,680; 2022: EUR 126,000), by the end of 2022 a total of EUR 382,000 will be available for funding article fees in Gold Open journals. “Since the publication fund was introduced ten years ago, we have been systematically developing this funding instrument and successfully obtaining external funding,” says Stefan Drößler, Open Access officer at the University of Stuttgart.
The university’s involvement in DEAL
The DEAL agreements are an important pillar of support for funding Open Access publications. The University of Stuttgart is involved in the DEAL agreements, in cooperation with the academic publishers Wiley (valid: 2019-2021) and Springer Nature [de] (valid: 2020-2022).
The aim of the German-wide DEAL agreements is to expediate the Open Access transformation, i.e., the restructuring of the academic publication system to Open Access. It remains unclear if an agreement with the academic publishers Elsevier can be reached.
Current information will be published on the DEAL project webpage [de] and on the new DEAL information platform. The university library regularly updates information about further agreements with numerous publishers on the university’s Open Access webpage. “If you have any questions about publication scope or funding then please contact the Open Access team,” says Stefan Drößler. He recommends selecting GOLD OA journals when publishing articles, and he also says that hybrid journals should be avoided if possible. In so-called hybrid journals, not all articles published are open access, they are a mix (hybrid) of closed and open access articles. Drößler further explains that the license “CC BY” should be assigned and that access should not be restricted further, as would be the case with more restrictive licenses such as “CC BY-NC”. “It is important to select CC BY if the publisher suggests other licenses as its default licenses”, clarifies Drößler.
Financial support for Open Access books
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has approved funding for Open Access monographies, as part of the project “TU9_Monos”. Open Access publication services are being developed for books, based on the example of several previously published works, and the TU9 universities will be able to use these. Authors who are considering publication can contact the Open Access team. In addition to monographies, it is also possible to receive funding for educational books and anthologies, as long as the editorship lies with an author at the University of Stuttgart. The project partners are the library of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, with the university publisher KIT Scientific Publishing and the Stuttgart University Library, and the university library Braunschweig as a new user. The publications will be developed in cooperation with the academic publisher Ubiquity Press.
Committed to Open Access: the University of Stuttgart has signed the "Berlin Declaration"
On April 1, the University of Stuttgart signed the "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to all Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities”. This step is intended to encourage scientists to publish their research findings, so that they remain freely available on the internet. To achieve this aim, central publication systems are under constant development, and these are available for use by university members.
Dates for the online seminars “Open access publication services at the Stuttgart University Library [de]".
Contact: Stefan Drößler, Open-Access-Commissioner
Tel.: 0711/685 83509
E-mail
New information platforms about DEAL, an introduction for authors