HHU Open Access Fund

As a rule, only publications published exclusively in fully open access journals or books can be funded.

Funded journal articles must carry the Creative Commons CC-BY licence.

Journals must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). For open access books, the publisher must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) or be a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).

Contributions to journals are funded up to a sum of 2,000 euros (net fee). If the publication fee exceeds this amount, the funding amount can be used to finance the contribution proportionally and the remaining amount can be financed from other sources (e.g. institute funds).

You can apply for a maximum of €5,000 for open access monographs; proportionate funding is also available for this.

The total funding amount is limited. Funds are disbursed in the order in which applications are received (first come, first served).

Articles in journals that actually finance themselves through a subscriptions model but make individual articles available via open access for a fee (e.g. SAGE Choice, Elsevier sponsored articles, etc.) are not eligible for funding.

In addition, articles in so-called mirror journals are excluded from funding. A current list of mirror journals can be found here.

If publication funds have been obtained for a contribution, for example within the framework of third-party funded projects, these must be used first. Any amounts exceeding this can be applied for via the OA fund.

HHU must be specified as the affiliation.

Feel free to contact us before you apply. This will allow us to clarify in advance whether funding will actually be possible and to help you to find alternative publishing options as necessary.

In the case of publication fees above the respective eligible amount, it may be possible to obtain a reduction of the fee from the publisher, so that you may not need to use any further funds. In such a case, please contact us before submitting your contribution.

Please use our online form to apply for funding as early as possible. We’ll let you know as soon as possible whether the publication fee can be covered.

Please note that funding approval is only valid for 12 months and applies exclusively for the data specified in your application. Therefore, please inform us immediately of any changes in the funding-relevant criteria of your publication, in particular a change of journal/ anthology or publisher or corresponding resp. submitting author.

Please let us know as soon as possible if your article is not published after all or you no longer wish to take advantage of our funding for other reasons so that we can release the funds.

Please use our online form to apply.