Publishing Open Access: Guidelines until 2025
Open Access (OA) stands for providing barrier-free access to academic literature and is becoming the new standard in publishing journal articles. Students and researchers benefit from OA since it offers free access to academic research results. OA generates a measurable increase in visibility of publications. For more detailed information visit Publishing and Research Data or contact the Library.
The Hertie School library is part of publishing agreements that allow all Hertie researchers to publish their articles OA without paying extra fees (see overview below). In addition to that, the library receives DFG funding for OA.
There are currently three different OA publishing models if the corresponding author has a Hertie affiliation:
A) Publishing OA in a hybrid/transformative journal with a transition agreement (a contract with the purpose of transforming these hybrid journals into pure OA journals): The library covers the publication fee.
B) Publishing in a hybrid journal without a transformation contract: The author decides to voluntarily pay an OA fee in order to publish an OA article in a non-OA journal. The library does not cover the publication fee.
C) Publishing in a gold (pure) OA journal: The author must pay the OA fee but the library may be able to to offer discounted prices and contribute the DFG funding.
The transition agreements with CUP, Elsevier, Sage, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley have different contract periods. The Hertie OA guidelines will be updated every year to reflect the current status of the agreements.
The existing transition agreements make it possible for the Hertie library to fund more than 85% of all Hertie publications.
There is no extra library funding available for publishing in a hybrid journal with any other than the six publishers mentioned above. However, discounted prices and DFG funding might still be available for publishing in a gold journal. Please contact the library (Open Access Office) for further advice.
We ask all Hertie researchers to familiarise themselves with the different publication models and leading publishers in their fields of research. Please check all publishing options and consider the alternatives. The Open Access Office is happy to provide further information on the various publication models.
Reporting requirements
Each article published within the six above-mentioned agreements (hybrid journals of CUP, Elsevier, Sage, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley) is automatically reported to the library. Please do not forget to select Hertie as your affiliation when submitting a paper.
Please inform the library whenever you plan to publish OA outside these agreements. This reporting is essential for the financial forecast and in order for you to receive DFG funding.
If an OA publication is not feasible, we encourage our researchers to make use of the “green OA” option by submitting the pre- or post-print version (manuscript version) of journal articles to the library. The library will make them available on the Hertie School Research Repository (OPUS) within the legal framework of German Copyright Law and publishers’ policies.
Other funding options
If the publication is not eligible for library or DFG funding, please check the following options:
- Research budgets (professorial budgets, project budgets)
- Third-party funding
- Institutions of co-authors might share or take over the costs within the framework of institutional agreements
- Only for Faculty members: You can apply for funding from the Faculty Activity Fund for an OA publication
For further advice and support, and to report OA publications, please visit our webpage or get in touch with the Open Access Office in the library: library[at]hertie-school[dot]org