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Publication Fund for Journal Articles

In January 2018, the open access publication fund was established by Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin with support from the German Research Foundation (DFG). Publication fees for journal articles (article processing charges, APCs) can be covered through the fund. Only articles published by members of Humboldt-Universität and in open access journals that meet the conditions stipulated by the DFG qualify for funding. The publication fund is administered by the University Library.

Funding conditions

On the part of the German Research Foundation and the Humboldt-Universität, the following criteria and general conditions apply to the funding of articles through the publication fund:

Each applicant must be a member of Humboldt-Universität at the time of application and must have contributed to the article either as submitting author or corresponding author. (Members of the Charité can apply for funding only via the Charité's own publication fund).
The selected journal publishes articles as open access immediately after publication and is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Furthermore, the journal fulfills the quality standards of the respective discipline.
Excluded from funding are open access options for contributions in subscription journals (known as hybrid open access) and contributions in mirror journals or sister journals (open access offshoots of subscription journals).
Funding is only available for scientific articles ( i.e. research articles, reviews, etc.).
Funded articles must be published under an open licence, ideally a Creative Commons licence (preferably Creative Commons Attribution / CC BY).
The cost of € 2,000 (excluding VAT) per article must not be exceeded. Partial funding is not possible.
Funding is only possible if the applicant has no means to cover the publication fees through third-party funding (e. g. financial resources for publications of research projects funded by DFG, BMBF or the EU).
Applicants should have registered with ORCID and have an ORCID iD (more information).
The article is published in 2024.

How to apply for the coverage of publication fees

If your article has been submitted and accepted for publication

Please check whether your article meets the funding requirements. You are also welcome to consult us in advance on questions relating to open access publishing.
If your publication meets the eligibility criteria, please complete the web form for the application for funding (see below) and attach the publisher's agreement or price offer as a PDF document.
You will usually receive information within a week as to whether the funding for your article can be covered by the fund.
Once you have received funding approval from us, you can publish the article with the intended publisher. The following acknowledgement of support from the publication fund of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin must be included in the publication: "The article processing charge was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – 491192747 and the Open Access Publication Fund of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin."
After payment of the invoice by the University Library you will be notified.
In addition to the initial publication by the publisher your article will be deposited on the edoc-Server, the open access repository of Humboldt-Universität (more information).

If your article has already been published and the fees have been paid by you or your department

Please check whether your article meets the funding requirements. You are also welcome to consult us in advance on questions relating to open access publishing.
If your publication meets the eligibility criteria, please complete the web form for the application for funding (see below) and attach the invoice as a PDF document. Please indicate payment details in the comments field (disbursement of private funds, payment via departmental funds, or other).
You will usually receive information within a week as to whether the funding for your article can be covered by the fund.
We will take care of the internal payment settlement with your administrative department.
In addition to the initial publication by the publisher your article will be deposited on the edoc-Server, the open access repository of Humboldt-Universität (more information).

Principles of the resource allocation

An application for funding can be submitted if the article has been accepted for publication by the publisher or has already been published. In any case, the order of funding is determined by the date of application.
In the interest of promoting young researchers, to which Humboldt-Universität is committed in its mission statement, junior researchers (doctoral candidates and postdocs) are given priority once 75% of the fund has been used up.
A maximum of two publications per person per year will be funded.
Members of Charité are not qualified for application. The Charité is an independent organizational unit and offers its members an own publication fund only available to members of Charité.

Support and frequently asked questions

You are welcome to contact us for advice on the publication fund. Please contact the Open Access Team.

Answers to some questions concerning funding through the publication fund can be found in our FAQ.

Application

Formular (Piktogramm) Apply for funding

Transparency

Publications supported by the publication fund so far can also be found on the edoc-Server, the open access repository of Humboldt-Universität.

The costs incurred for funding are documented for each individual article on the platform of the Open APC initiative at the end of each year. On this platform, universities and non-university research institutions share their expenditures for open access publication fees as open data and in a visually prepared form. This allows a transparent and comparable overview of the funding provided for open access publications by German research institutions for the first time. This allows the scientific community and society to participate in the public discussion about the change in scientific publishing in the context of the transformation towards open access.