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Bibliothekstür mit Schriftzug

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The publication fund

As an author, you can publish your research results in OA using either the gold or the hybrid route. In the first case, your work is published in a purely OA medium, such as an OA journal. In the second case, the publication will be in a medium that is funded via the closed access model. However, your work is released via a separate OA license.

For gold or hybrid publishing, publishers usually charge publication fees that are payable by you as the author (article processing charges, or APCs).

To help you finance your publication, Mainz University of Applied Sciences has set up a publication fund from which you can be partially reimbursed for your APCs. This is possible, for example, for APCs which are incurred for the publication of articles in selected journals of the publishing houses Springer Nature and Wiley (DEAL).

Alternatively or in addition to the support from the university's publication fund, you have the option of applying for funding from institutions such as the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

Please note: In addition to the gold or hybrid route, the green route to publication in open access is frequently also available to you (secondary publication on Open Gutenberg Science). This usually does not incur any open access publication fees for you. You can find publishing guidelines at Sherpa Romeo.

THE PUBLICATION FUND: BACKGROUND AND AMOUNT OF FUNDING

Mainz University of Applied Sciences strives to support its publishing scholars in the publication of research results in open access. Starting in 2022, the university has established a fund from which authors of open access publications can have a portion of their publication fees reimbursed, where applicable.

The publication fund is currently funded exclusively by the university library and has a budget of 20,000 Euro.

 

Funding currently amounts to a maximum of half the cost per academic article for teaching staff, and the full amount for junior researchers, subject to available funds. Please note that this amount often does not cover the full publication fees. Since financial resources are limited and depend on external funds to be acquired, no guarantee of reimbursement can be provided.

For your information:

  •  APCs for an open access publication can vary from journal to journal. For example, some journals charge publication fees of 2,000 Euro or more per article (Informational article: How much do top publishers charge for Open Access, P. Markin, as of 2017).
  • As an alternative, it is frequently possible for you to publish your research results as a secondary publication in open access (green route) - subject to an embargo period, where applicable. In this case, there are usually no costs for you. Please note the open access policy of the respective publisher (information: Sherpa Romeo)

 

 

 

Unfortunately, funding cannot be guaranteed. Even if all eligibility criteria are met, it is only possible if there are corresponding amounts available in the fund.

 

The number of OA publications by members of Mainz University of Applied Sciences is currently low. For the time being, funds are allocated on a first come, first serve basis.

 

If you publish in journals published by Springer Nature or Wiley & Sons in open access, your publications are usually covered by the DEAL agreements which Mainz University of Applied Sciences is a party to.

For you as an author, this means, among other things, that you will not be charged publication fees (APCs) by the publishers themselves. Instead, the APCs will be invoiced via the DEAL consortium and then passed on to the university at a discount in a second step.

Please note: Due to the limited publication funds available at Mainz University of Applied Sciences, the APCs will be charged back to you by the university applying the costs-by-cause principle. Funds from the publication fund can be used to subsequently reimburse you for a portion of the APCs.

For detailed information on DEAL, please visit:

 

FUNDING CRITERIA

Everyone considered a member of Mainz University of Applied Sciences is eligible to apply. The publication fund is primarily intended for those publishing without alternative possibilities of financing or support. Students are explicitly included.


Members of the university include, for example, the following:

  • professors
  • lecturers
  • research assistants
  • research staff members
  • other full-time staff members
  • teaching staff for special tasks (LfbA)
  • enrolled students
  • academic and non-academic staff in private employment who work full-time at the university as university staff within the scope of externally funded projects

 

In general:

Due to limited funding available, applications may be submitted for journal articles and OA monographs. The exact funding criteria are listed in the next tab. For OA book publications, the DFG: Info sheet on publication aid (only available in German) of the German Research Foundation can be used, if applicable.

DEAL:

The following journal articles can be published and funded in open access in Springer or Wiley journals under DEAL agreements:

  • Springer journals (gold/hybrid):
    • original papers
    • review papers
    • brief communications
    • only hybrid: editorial notes
    • only hybrid: book reviews
    • only hybrid: reports
       
  • Wiley journals (gold/hybrid): 
    • primary research articles
    • review articles

 

In general, please note the following!

Due to the limited resources available, the fund is primarily intended for those publishing without alternative funding and financing options.

  • Before submitting an application, please check whether it is possible to cover the publication fees from other funds (for instance, via individual funding programs or publication grants from approved projects). Joint funding of the total fees from other funds is allowed.

Funding eligibility criteria for journal articles:

For you as an author of an open access journal article to qualify for funding from the university's publication fund, the following criteria must be met:

  • Requirements of the researcher:
      • The researcher is a member of Mainz University of Applied Sciences at the time of submission, and is the corresponding author who is usually responsible for the publication costs (APC).
      • Before submitting the proposal, the author must check whether the financing of the open access publication for projects funded by third parties can be covered by the respective third-party funds.
      • The author is obligated to acknowledge the funding by the DFG in the publication: The publication was funded by the OA fund of Mainz University of Applied Sciences and the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Open Access Publishing funding program.
      • The author agrees to the data protection and privacy regulations.
      • The author has an ORCID profile (to be linked)
    • Requirements of the journal/publisher:
      • It is a genuine open access journal that meets the strict criteria of the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) supplemented to include titles from the Gold Open Access list (Bielefeld).
      • The journal ensures that all articles are published free of charge and in full immediately after their acceptance. Free access is possible on the internet.
      • Publication in hybrid journals that only make parts of their articles freely available is not funded.
      • No funding will be provided for Open Choice.
    • Requirements of the publication:
      • The publication is accepted in a genuine open access journal.
      • The publication is published under a CC-BY license or a CC-BY-SA license (for books).
      • The publication is published secondarily in the university's institutional repository (Gutenberg Open Science).
      • The publication appears as an article in a gold-only open access journal.
      • The rigorous quality assurance procedures established by the respective discipline (such as peer review) are applied.

 

 

Applying

Due to the limited funds available, the publication fund is primarily intended for those publishing who have no alternative funding or financing options available to them.

We kindly ask you to check in the context of your project proposals or projects whether the costs for OA publications can be fully covered by other funding sources.

 


First, you will receive a confirmation of receipt. Next, the library's Open Access Service Center will check on behalf of the university whether the funding criteria have been met and will inform you of the result by email within a short period of time.

In the event of a positive decision, reimbursement will be made to the cost center or private account you have specified (this usually takes two to three weeks; please indicate shorter payment terms if desired).

Please note the following:

  • Reimbursement may only be made to the account or cost center from which the expenses were (pre-)paid.
  • Reimbursement is possible for invoices from calendar year 2021 onwards. The date of the publisher's invoice is the determining factor.
  • For invoices in foreign currencies such as US dollars (USD) or Swiss francs (CHF), the Euro exchange rate must be taken into account.
  • Bank charges and foreign exchange fees cannot be reimbursed from the publication fund.

 

INFORMATION: DEAL AND THE PUBLICATION PROCESS

Background:

Mainz University of Applied Sciences is a participant in the DEAL agreements with Springer Nature. Among other things, this enables you to publish articles in strictly OA journals with Springer Nature. A 20 percent discount is granted on the APC list prices incurred (APC = article processing charge). The APCs are first billed to the university and then charged back to you. You may be partially reimbursed for the costs through the publication fund.

Key data of the journals available to choose from:

Please note: Nature journals whose title contains the term "Nature" (Nature branded journals), magazines such as Scientific American, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, and technical journals such as ATZ and MTZ are not covered by the DEAL agreement.


Procedure:

Assistance from MPDL Services GmbH:

As corresponding author, specify Mainz University of Applied Sciences as your DEAL institution completely and consistently throughout the submission and publication process. This information should also correspond to the manuscript and the publication itself.

If you are affiliated with more than one institution, Mainz University of Applied Sciences should only be mentioned first if the scientific accomplishment on which the article is based primarily originated at this institution.

Use only your institutional email address.

If you are unsure whether your employment entitles you to open access publishing under DEAL (for example, as an emeritus professor), please check with your university library.


Information from the publishing house:

 

Background:

Mainz University of Applied Sciences is a participant in the DEAL agreements with Springer Nature. This enables you, among other things, to publish articles in hybrid journals in open access at Springer Nature. (Please note: You can still publish your article there in classic closed access - in what is known as "opt-out", including a transfer of usage rights to the publisher).

Key data of the journals available to choose from:

Please note: Nature journals whose title contains the term "Nature" (Nature branded journals), magazines such as Scientific American, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, and technical journals such as ATZ and MTZ are not covered by the DEAL agreement.


Procedure:

Assistance from MPDL Services GmbH:

  1. As corresponding author, specify Mainz University of Applied Sciences as your DEAL institution completely and consistently throughout the submission and publication process. This information should also correspond to the manuscript and the publication itself.

    If you are affiliated with more than one institution, Mainz University of Applied Sciences should only be mentioned first if the scientific accomplishment on which the article is based primarily originated at this institution.

    Use only your institutional email address.

    If you are unsure whether your employment entitles you to open access publishing under DEAL (for example, as an emeritus professor), please check with your university library.
     
  2. After your article has been accepted for publication, you will be prompted to select "Open Access" in the publication workflow. Confirm the open access option offered by the publisher (Open Choice).

    Once you have selected "Open Access," you will be asked to confirm the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) for your article. While authors have traditionally transferred all rights to their work to publishers, under the CC-BY license, authors retain the right to reuse their own work and freely and legally redistribute their published articles so that scholars around the world can read and build upon your work, provided they cite you.

Information from the publishing house:

 

Background:

Mainz University of Applied Sciences is a participant in the DEAL agreements with Wiley & Sons. Among other things, this enables you to publish articles in strictly OA journals with Wiley & Sons. A 20 percent discount is granted on the APC list prices incurred (APC = article processing charge). The APCs are first billed to the university and then charged back to you. You may be partially reimbursed for the costs through the publication fund.

Key data of the journals available to choose from:

Procedure:

Assistance from MPDL Services GmbH:

As corresponding author, specify Mainz University of Applied Sciences as your DEAL institution completely and consistently throughout the submission and publication process. This information should also correspond to the manuscript and the publication itself.

If you are affiliated with more than one institution, Mainz University of Applied Sciences should only be mentioned first if the scientific accomplishment on which the article is based primarily originated at this institution.

Use only your institutional email address.

If you are unsure whether your employment entitles you to open access publishing under DEAL (for example, as an emeritus professor), please check with your university library.


Information from the publishing house:

 

Background:

Mainz University of Applied Sciences is a participant in the DEAL agreements with Wiley & Sons. This enables you, among other things, to publish articles in hybrid journals in open access at Wiley & Sons. (Please note: You can still publish your article there in classic closed access - in what is known as "opt-out", including a transfer of usage rights to the publisher).

Key data of the journals available to choose from:

Procedure:

Assistance from MPDL Services GmbH:

  1. As corresponding author, specify Mainz University of Applied Sciences as your DEAL institution completely and consistently throughout the submission and publication process. This information should also correspond to the manuscript and the publication itself.

    If you are affiliated with more than one institution, Mainz University of Applied Sciences should only be mentioned first if the scientific accomplishment on which the article is based primarily originated at this institution.

    Use only your institutional email address.

    If you are unsure whether your employment entitles you to open access publishing under DEAL (for example, as an emeritus professor), please check with your university library.
     
  2. After your article has been accepted for publication, you will be prompted to select "Open Access" in the publication workflow. Confirm the open access option offered by the publisher (Online Open).

    Once you have selected "Open Access," you will be asked to confirm the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) for your article. While authors have traditionally transferred all rights to their work to publishers, under the CC-BY license, authors retain the right to reuse their own work and freely and legally redistribute their published articles so that scholars around the world can read and build upon your work, provided they cite you.

Information from the publishing house:

 

OTHER FUNDING POSSIBILITIES

In September 2016, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) presented an open access strategy (only available in German) aimed at improving the basic framework for open access in Germany. Among other things, authors are encouraged to publish in open access publications that are produced as part of projects funded by the Ministry.

Funding for publication fees can be applied for as part of the project funding.

 

 

 

The German Research Foundation (DFG) is a co-signatory of the "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities" and supports efforts to make research freely available via the internet. Among its many activities, the DFG provides publication funds of 750 Euro per year in individual funding. Authors can apply for these funds for OA publications that have been produced as part of DFG-funded projects.

Information on individual funding can be found here:

In addition to providing funding for publications resulting from DFG projects, the German Research Foundation has established a publication grant for fundamental works and works of "particular scientific significance":

 

The European Commission supports the open access publication of results from EU-funded projects with an open access publication platform: Open Research Europe (ORE). The platform enables authors of publications resulting from EU-funded projects to apply for the payment of publication fees of 780 Euro per article.

More detailed information can be found on the ORE website:

 

Questions? Who to contact