Open-Access Monographs

Since 2019, the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar’s open-access publication fund has been providing (co)funding within the scope of the available resources to cover open-access publication costs (book processing charges, BPCs) for previously unpublished open-access monographs and anthologies. The funding, which comes from the Thuringian Ministry of Economy, Science and Digital Society (TMWWDG), is administered by the University Library.

Since 2023, monographs or anthologies resulting from DFG-funded research projects can be supported with up to €5,000 gross per book under the DFG funding programme "Open Access Publication Costs".

Proposals are processed and approved in the order that they are received until all the funds have been used up. A decision-making body rules on whether funding is to be awarded. Publications must reference this funding when published.

Funding criteria

The requirements for funding are as follows:

Eligibility to submit an application

The author of a monograph or editor of an anthology must be a member of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. The affiliation of the publishing party must be clearly visible in the publication.

Funding is normally provided to initial publications, i.e. open-access monographs and anthologies that have not previously been published. The open-access publication can also be published in print (associated costs will not be covered).

Scope of funding

Open-access publication fees will be reimbursed up to a maximum of €2,000 (plus VAT) per open-access book.

Monographs or anthologies resulting from DFG-funded research projects can be supported with up to €5,000 gross per book. Please acknowledge the funding in the acknowledgements with the note: "We acknowledge support for the publication costs by the Open Access Publication Fund of Bauhaus Universität Weimar and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)."

This funding can be combined with other funding resources.

The funding is limited to two book publications per author per year.

The funding commitment is for a period of 12 months. If publication has not taken place by the end of this deadline, the funding application must be resubmitted.

Only open-access publication fees will be funded. Printing costs, setting costs, surcharges for colour or scope etc. are not eligible for funding.

Open access

The publication will be made freely available online without any financial, legal or technical obstacles. The open-access publication must be released at the same time as any parallel print version (with no restrictions).

The publication must be identified as open access and must have a free licence (we strongly recommend Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0).

All monographs and anthologies that receive funding will be made available online and permanently archived on the Digitale Bibliothek Thüringen.

Publishing houses

The publication must undergo a standard quality assurance procedure for its particular discipline (e.g. peer review) before being published. The quality assurance process must be described and confirmed by the publishing house if required.

If the publication is based on a thesis, then it must have been awarded at least a ‘magna cum laude’.

Funding is only available to publications via publishing houses if they transparently communicate the costs of open-access publication. The proportion covering open-access costs should be shown separately.

The publishing house must be listed as an open-access publisher, e. g. in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) or as a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).

For publication exclusively on the Digitale Bibliothek Thüringen without collaboration with a publishing house, publication costs are covered up to a maximum of €1000 (plus VAT) for elements such as layout, PDF generation, proofreading, editing or similar, undertaken by student/research assistants or external service providers. Proposals such as these must be justified with a detailed description of the content of the publication project. This should cover the following criteria: publication content and criteria, quality assurance procedure, sustainability and particular importance to the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, strengthening national and international visibility and awareness of research and projects undertaken at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.

Advice and application

We provide you with advice before you submit the application and are able to review the publishing contract in advance.

Please send your application with information about the publication (authorship, title, year, publishing house, DOI if relevant, open-access publication fee amount) and confirmation that you meet the funding criteria to: openaccess[at]ub.uni-weimar.de