DFG grant for "Open Access Publication Costs" at the University of Stuttgart

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved the project "Open Access Publication Costs / 2025-2027 / University of Stuttgart"”. This means that a grant will continue to be available over the next three years to support the transformation of publications to Open Access. With this funding, the DFG is recognizing the University's overall organizational efforts to make the structural adjustments necessary for the open access transformation. This includes:

• improving the data basis for cost monitoring of central and decentralized publication expenditure, information budget,
• publication monitoring (university bibliography),
• cross-departmental and cross-institutional cooperation (organizational development) and
• improved communication.

The adjustments are being made by the university itself. The university management, the university library, central administration (controlling, financial accounting, personnel development) and the institutes (new invoice workflow) are involved.

The DFG funding of up to 836,800 euros is available for article fees in scientific journals, Open Access books and transformation contracts. They will be made available over the next three years via the University's Open Access Publication Fund according to the following breakdown:

• 821,800 euros for Article Processing Charges (APC)
• 15,000 euros for Open Access Books from DFG Grants (Monographs)

The funding criteria for the Publication Fund apply, whereby the DFG guidelines form the framework.

Agreements with academic publishers (contracts, membership models, etc.) change as a result of new business models and negotiations. An overview of the centralized assumption of costs for Open Access publications at the University of Stuttgart is continuously updated on the page “Memberships & agreements with publishers”.

A new change is the adjustment of funding for publications at MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute). From January 1, 2025, only a maximum of 1,200 euros gross per article will be available. Journals deindexed in the DOAJ (see Change Log) and the Web of Science will no longer be funded.