Open Access Award

The Open Access Award of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Open honors outstanding and exceptional achievements by members of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in the field of Open Access, i.e. the free access to research results. With the annual award, the University Library aims to make the open access activities of researchers at Humboldt-Universität more visible, to appreciate them and to establish connections for future plans and projects. The award was established in 2020 and presented for the first time in the subsequent year.

Dates and deadlines

The call for applications runs parallel to the Humboldt-Preis: applications can be submitted until July 1st of each year. The selection is made by the beginning of the winter semester and the award ceremony takes place in November, together with the Humboldt-Preis.

Who receives the award?

Individuals and groups who meet one or more of the following criteria are eligible to apply:   

  • special commitment to publishing in the open access model or to making publications freely accessible (this includes original open access text publications, making previously published but not yet freely accessible text publications openly accessible, journal articles, monographs and edited volumes as well as other types of text publications)
  • the successful implementation of a project or development of a product with the aim of implementing and strengthening open access (e.g. founding of a new open access journal, transformation of a journal or book series, development of a web resource or service, development of software or helpful tools)
  • a special commitment to communicating and promoting Open Access and its principles to the public, the scientific community or subject speficic community.

Only achievements from the current or previous calendar year can be submitted.

Who can apply? 

The award can be presented to both individuals and groups of members of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Only members of Humboldt-Universität are eligible. In the case of groups, at least half of the group must be members of Humboldt-Universität.

Prize money

The prize money amounts to a total of €5,000. It enables the recipients to finance further open access publications or to implement projects that promote the free availability of scientific results or strengthen open access as a principle in teaching and research. The prize can be awarded as a single prize or divided into two individual prizes, provided that the applications include two outstanding and equally prize-worthy achievements that are either completely different in nature or that should be distinguished fairly due to the significantly different academic status of the potential prize winners.

The jury

The award winners are selected from the applications by a five-member jury made up of representatives from research and central institutions at Humboldt-Universität.

How to apply

Applications for the Open Access Award 2024 are possible until July 1, 2024. Please use the web forms below to apply. You have the option of submitting additional documents to the web form. However, in order to make the application process as simple as possible, you do not need to submit expert reports and CVs. Please focus on presenting your activities and achievements or your project and include links to further information if necessary.   

Application form for individuals

Application form for groups

If you would like to nominate a candidate or a group for the prize, please inform them directly about the possibility of applying for the Open Access Award. If this is not possible, please send us a proposal by e-mail to openaccess@ub.hu-berlin.de.

Laureates

2022 (awarded 2023)

read the news of the announcement of the award and the award ceremony (German)

2021 (awarded 2022)

read the news of the announcement of the award and the award ceremony (German)

2020 (awarded 2021)

  • Category Individual (2,500 €): Dr. Constanze Baum (Department of German Literature)
  • Category Group/Project (2,500 €): The Urban Transcripts Journal and its editors (Department of Social Sciences)
  • Special price in the category Junior Scientists (1,000 €): Journal Die junge Mommsen and its editors (Department of History)

read the news of the announcement of the award (German)

read the news of the award ceremony (German)

Contact

If you have any questions, please contact the Open Access team at the University Library. Your contact person is Dr. Christina Riesenweber.