Open Access Publishing Costs / 2022-2024 / Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

• Applicant: Stefanie Seeh
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 491193203

Unrestricted access to scientific literature has long been of significant concern to the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. Fraunhofer was one of the first signatories of the "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities" in 2003 and adopted its own "Open Access Policy" in 2008. In line with this policy, Fraunhofer has significantly increased the proportion of freely accessible publications by Fraunhofer authors over the past 15 years. It is the express aim of Fraunhofer to continue along this path in the spirit of the transformation towards open access. Since 1980, all publications of researchers of the Fraunhofer institutes and research institutions have been recorded in the institutional repository "Fraunhofer-Publica", which is publicly accessible and represents the organization’s entire research spectrum. Approximately 8,000 new publications are added annually. The "Publica Policy" adopted by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in 2011 reaffirms the claim to record all institutes’ scientific publications in a timely and complete manner. Publication analyses by Fraunhofer have confirmed that its own institutional repository has clear advantages over well-known reference databases in terms of timeliness, completeness and data quality. However, further structural development of Fraunhofer's internal systems will be necessary in order to meet the long-term requirements resulting from the transformation of scientific publishing towards open access. The work packages planned for the project period aim to ensure such structural development. In order to achieve significant and sustainable structural improvement, currently existing deficits in the metadata schema of the repository are to be remedied during the project period. The conversion of Fraunhofer-Publica to a new technical basis (DSpace-CRIS 7.0) scheduled for the third quarter of 2021 will be an ideal starting point for adjustments to the metadata schema in order to establish the number of open access publications that are chargeable to Fraunhofer, as well as allow differentiation between various open access types. It is also intended to link bibliographic metadata of individual publications with the publication costs incurred. Implementation of the planned measures and the associated structural enhancements to the database during the project period will significantly improve Fraunhofer-wide cost management and analytical processes and ensure gradual transfer of the adjustments to daily practice. The project will create a basis for more flexible evaluation options for cost management of open access publications and for sustainable, holistic analyses of publication and cost data within the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

• DFG Programme: Science Communication, Research Data, eResearch (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Co-Investigators: Vera Binz; Kakia Katsinika; Antje Schroeder