Open access policy adopted
Science is built on collaboration. The exchange and dissemination of new insights are key building blocks for scientific progress. The digital transformation, which is also revolutionising scientific work, has produced entirely new opportunities for sharing scientific data, methods and findings. As well as enabling quick, global distribution, it also makes multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary access increasingly easy. This also relates to the publication of research findings in the form of essays or monographs, which are traditionally published by specialist publishers such as Springer Nature or Cambridge University Press. Traditional journal subscriptions have been increasingly called into question in recent years, as they mean that high costs limit access to the findings produced (and generally also peer reviewed) by scientists. In order to dismantle this model, the academic community came up with the ‘open access’ movement, which champions free access to knowledge.
Paderborn University recently adopted its own open access policy, thus clearly signalling that they are advocating open access to academic publications and thus emphatically helping its researchers publish in open access form. The guidelines incorporated within it serve as implementation orientation for researchers. By officially signing the ‘Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities’, the core of the open access movement, Paderborn University also set the tone for systemic change towards research-friendly publication.
As well as this political positioning, the university is also reinforcing its ambitions with improved structures for information and funding, both of which are coordinated and overseen by the university library: an open access portal collates the most important information relating to the topic. The provision of a central Open Access Publication Fund also gives university researchers an opportunity to obtain funding to enable open access scientific publications.
‘The measures that have now been taken are key building blocks to help prepare Paderborn University for the future as regards digital transformation in academia’, emphasises Professor Johannes Blömer, Vice-President for Research and Junior Academics. To ensure that this can be continually adapted to constantly changing conditions for the long term, strategic responsibility for this topic also lies with the Vice-President for Research and Junior Academics. Together with the university’s Open Access Officer, they are tasked with promoting further strategic development of the topic and thus boosting Paderborn University as an attractive research location.
The open access policy, information about the Open Access Publication Fund, and further information on the topic can be found on the open access portal.
