Not all of the Leibniz institutions are taking part in the Open Access Fund. Participation is open to all but since the individual Leibniz institutions have to cover the major part of the costs they need to formally declare that they will take part. If your Leibniz institution does not appear in the online form, its directors have either decided against joining the Open Access Fund or we have not yet received confirmation that your institution will participate. If you need further information please write to us at publikationsfonds(at)leibniz-gemeinschaft.de or ask the open access manager of your Leibniz institution.

Yes, you can apply for funding as soon as you have submitted your article. Our grant, however, will in this case be subject to the condition that once accepted your article still fulfils all of our funding criteria (the APCs, especially, may not exceed € 2.000, including tax).

Yes you can do so - provided that your article was published in 2017 (or 2018) and the invoice has not yet been paid. The application process is described here.

Reputable journals state the APCs on their website. Many publishers even send you a preliminary invoice right after you have submitted your article. In these cases the final costs should only vary due to overlength or due to additional editing or such things. Should a publisher leave you in the dark about the costs you will incur throughout the entire review process – which can easily take six months or more – you should exercise caution. Explicitly asking about the APCs is more than justified in this case! We are happy to support you in such matters. Do not hesitate to write to us at publikationsfonds(at)leibniz-gemeinschaft.de.

No, it would probably not be eligible for funding. If your publisher is abroad it is probably a net amount and you need to add 19 % value added tax (VAT). So in effect your article would cost about € 2.380, which exceeds our funding limit of € 2.000 including tax. Only in exceptional cases will publishers quote costs including tax (VAT or sales tax). German publishers generally state a gross amount and so does Royal Society Publishing (OA-journals Open Biology, Royal Society Open Science). Most other publishers do not. We would be happy to support you in clarifying this matter. (publikationsfonds(at)leibniz-gemeinschaft.de).

It would, at least, not be impossible. According to our funding criteria you need to publish in a genuine Open Access journal that has implemented a system of quality management that is accepted within its discipline. We will verify individually whether or not the journal you want your paper to be published in meets these criteria.

Yes, your article would be eligible, both programmes are compatible. Just apply for funding after you have submitted your article or once it has been accepted. When checking whether or not your article meets the funding criteria we will allow for the 20% discount of the SpringerOpen/BMC membership.

Most open access funds exclude "hybrid" business models because they are rather non-transparent. Publishers are suspected to offer hybrid models in order to cash in twice: they take subscription fees for reading access and they take additional payments for making articles available open access (so called "double dipping"). Furthermore, publishing an article open access in a hybrid journal is on average more expensive than publishing it in a genuine open access journal. Finally, it appears rather unlikely that hybrid journals can be transformed into genuine open access journals any time soon. Thus, this business model helps to cement the current subscription system that is getting too expensive for public funds.

Unfortunately, the Open Access Fund does only fund articles in open access journals. We cannot grant funding for other publications. The Leibniz Association, however, appreciates all open access publications and will endeavour to develop suitable funding options.

We can resolve this together. Please write to us at publikationsfonds(at)leibniz-gemeinschaft.de.

Authors of some Leibniz-Institutions need to provide an accounts- or project-number. This is due to these institution's financial structures. If you have further questions regarding this matter please write to us at publikationsfonds(at)leibniz-gemeinschaft.de.

No, the TIB pays the publishers’ invoices in full in the first instance, which includes covering the institute’s share. Twice a year, at the start of July and the start of December, your institute will receive a collective invoice for all the costs incurred to date. However, to give you an overview, all funded articles will be itemised on the invoice.

You will receive regular emails from us with statements showing the status of applications from your institute that have been made and approved and, of course, showing the costs incurred. We aim to send out statements once a month.
Once we have processed an application from your institute, we will also send you a copy of the response (approval or rejection with reason). This gives you the opportunity to get in touch with the applicant immediately if there are alternative financing options at your institute.

As far as we know, this currently only applies to institutes that are members of SpringerOpen/BMC programmes and these are compatible with the fund. You should submit an application to the publication fund as normal once you have submitted your article. When assessing the funding criteria, we will take into account the 20% membership programme discount and settle the invoice directly with the German National Library of Medicine (ZB Med). If your institute makes use of other discount programmes, we will be happy to check whether they are compatible with the fund. Contact us at publikationsfonds(at)leibniz-gemeinschaft.de

Yes. In these instances, we offer reimbursement of the central grant sum (20% of the publication costs), provided the article was published in 2017. The requirement is that your institute invoices us for 20% of the publication costs. To do this, please write to us at publikationsfonds(at)leibniz-gemeinschaft.de or via our application form making use of the comment field.

Yes. You can suspend your participation for the current year at any time and the fund team will stop accepting applications from your institute.