More Information

Here we provide recommendations for further external information services and list some initiatives and projects as well as declarations, strategies and guidelines.

External information services

Information Platform Open Access

The Information Platform Open Access offers a detailed introduction to open access and further in-depth information on individual topics. In addition, it provides target group-specific and subject-specific information. The section on legal issues provides country-specific information for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Open Access Office Berlin

The Open Access Office Berlin provides information for Berlin's scientific and cultural institutions on the core objectives of the Berlin Open Access Strategy, supports their implementation and promotes networking among the various stakeholders. The Open Access Office Berlin provides specific resources for this purpose. It is located at the University Library of Freie Universität Berlin.

Podcasts

You can also learn more about open access by listening to podcasts. The Open Access podcast of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research offers an easy introduction. At irregular intervals, the Open Science Radio reports on news and events relating to open access, and also provides an overview of open access (e.g. episode 14: Open Access 101) as well as for specific issues and tools in their episode archive. The relationship of open access and the publishing system is discussed in an episode about the scientific publication system of the Resonator podcast. (The listed podcasts are mostly in German.)

Videos

You can also familiarise yourself with open access by watching informative videos. A quick insight is provided by the video series of the Information Platform Open Access and a video about open access by PhD Comics. The documentary "Paywall: The Business of Scholarship" explores the business models of large publishers within the academic publishing system and the open access movement that is positioning itself against such models.

Books und websites

You can also find a good overview of open access in the "Praxishandbuch Open Access" (2017, De Gruyter Saur, German) and the book "Open Access" by Peter Suber (2012, MIT Press). Peter Suber, a long-time figure in the open access movement, also offers a brief overview of open access including its history and background. A compact and visually appealing illustration of the history of open access is provided by the Open Access Timeline of Symplectic. Information on open access is of course also available from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Research Foundation.

Initiatives and projects

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is an international association of academic and research libraries founded in 1997 with the aim of promoting open access.

OA2020 is an initiative with the aim of a large-scale open access transformation.

Plan S is a project for fostering open access to scientific results that have been produced with public funding. The project is supported by the so-called cOAlition S, an association of 18 national and international research funding institutions, the European Commission and the European Research Council.

Declarations, strategies, guidelines

The 'big three' declarations on open access are:

• Budapest Open Access Initiative (2001)
• Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003)
• Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003)

The following strategies and guidelines on open access are especially relevant to researchers of Humboldt-Universität:

• Open Access Policy of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2021)
• Berlin Open Access Strategy (2015, German)
• Open Access Strategy of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (2016, German)
• Open access guidelines in the usage guidelines of the German Research Foundation (last updated 2022, see pages 42–43; German)
• Open access guidelines of the European Commission for Horizon 2020
• Requirements on open access and open science of the European Commission for Horizon Europe:
  • Horizon Europe – Programme Guide
  • ​Open Science Policy of the EU