Open Access Publication Fund / 2024-2026 / Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research

• Applicant: Dr. Claudia Hackenberg
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 532001365

The Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (LIR) conducts research at the highest scientific level and is convinced that scientific knowledge should be freely accessible and reusable without restrictions. Accordingly, the LIR supports its researchers in publishing their research Open Access (OA) in peer-reviewed journals, e.g., through participation in consortium transformation agreements with publish & read components and a central fund for OA fees. Approximately 60% of the publications with a corresponding author OA affiliated with LIR are already being published with OA. Costs for OA publications are high, constantly increasing, and difficult to predict. The funds available in third-party funded projects for OA publications are often not sufficient to fully finance the OA fee. Often the OA fees have to be compensated from other cost categories or by central funds of the LIR. With this funding measure, LIR will establish an OA publication fund to subsidize eligible OA publications and support the researchers in making their research results freely accessible worldwide without barriers or embargo periods. The goal is to continuously increase the number of OA publications of the LIR. At the same time, administrative processes will be established during the funding period. This will lead to a central, systematic, and standardized recording of OA publications and their costs, resulting in an efficient overview of the development of OA publishing at the LIR. Such a restructuring and simultaneous increase in the number of OA publications is associated with major challenges, especially for comparatively small institutes without their own library. The new administrative processes will be established, checked, optimized, and consolidated in four work packages during the funding period. The efficiency of the monitoring of publication costs and the collection of all relevant bibliographic data at the LIR is thus significantly increased. The various OA models and the associated different costs, which also vary from journal to journal, cause a higher need for counseling. An important measure during the funding is therefore the active counseling of researchers about OA, established transformation contracts and existing possibilities for the funding of OA publications. With this funding measure the fundamental transformation process towards more OA publications at the LIR will be further promoted, contributing to using the possibilities of OA for scientific exchange.

• DFG Programme: Science Communication, Research Data, eResearch (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)