Open Access Publication Funding / 2025 – 2027 / University of Bamberg

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Kai Fischbach
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 491108733

The University of Bamberg has been participating in the DFG project "Open- Access-Publikationskosten" since 2022; it was funded in the "Open Access Publizieren" programme from 2013 to 2020. Since the beginning of its Open Access funding programme, the University of Bamberg has adopted a centralised approach, with responsibilities clearly assigned to the University Library. It provides a comprehensive infrastructure for Diamond Open Access, including the University Publisher University of Bamberg Press, and attaches particular importance to making Open Access funding as straightforward and service-oriented as possible for its researchers. In 2022 and 2023, the focus at Bamberg University was on managing the growing number of centrally funded OA publications, setting up a secondary publication service, advising academics on research and publication-related issues, institutional and technical embedding of research data management, and planning an Open Science strategy for the university. The central booking of publication-related invoices in the University Library, introduced in April 2024, is an important step towards an information budget, as it provides full cost transparency for the first time. In this second funding phase, the University of Bamberg intends to focus on setting up an information budget, adopting and implementing its Open Science strategy, and integrating publication and funding data into automated systems. It will further strengthen the networking of the institutions involved in its Current Research Information System and reorganise its workflows so that funding information is recorded more consistently and made more visible. With its many small disciplines, the University of Bamberg sees itself as a pioneer of Diamond Open Access in the Humanities and Social Sciences. It intends to further expand its extensive activities in this area and to use the project to support the change in academic publishing culture towards Open Access as the standard.

• DFG Programme: Science Communication, Research Data, eResearch (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)