Open Access
Open access refers to the free access to scientific results. This way, scientific publications are digital, free of charge and publicly accessible via the internet. Open access publications can generally be read, copied, distributed, printed, searched and otherwise reused without technical or legal barriers.
- get an overview of open access in 3 minutes
- how to achieve open access for different publication types
- explanation of the two paths of open access publishing
- differences between an initial publication and a secondary publication
- publication funds for journal articles as well as monographs and edited volumes
- third-party funding and special conditions with publishers and journals
- overview of previously funded open access publications
- licences
- author rights and secondary publication right
- predatory publishing – how to recognise and avoid it
- contact our open access team
- publication consulting, events, workshops
- honours outstanding achievements in the area of open access
- application open to all university members, awarded yearly
- policy on open access publishing of Humboldt-Universität
- recommendation to publish research results open access
- guidelines for implementing open access
Open Access at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
The Humboldt-Universität has signed the "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities" and thereby clearly committed itself to open access to scientific information.
The open access policy of Humboldt-Universität was first adopted by the academic senate in 2006 and last updated in 2021. It recommends that all scientists and scholars submit their contributions to open access journals and to make previously published articles available via the Humboldt-Universität's repository (the so-called edoc-Server) as well as to publish monographs and anthologies in a freely accessible way. This is supported specifically by the university's own open access publication funds to which members of the university can apply to fund open access publications.
The University Library of Humboldt-Universität is actively involved in the implementation of the Berlin Open Access Strategy.
Furthermore, Humboldt-Universität supports the idea of open access through its cooperation and membership in several national and international committees and initiatives:
- Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR)
- Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerkinformation e.V. (DINI)
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
- DSpace-Konsortium Deutschland
- ENABLE! – Bibliotheken, Verlage und Autor*innen für Open Access in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften
- nestor – Kompetenznetzwerk für Langzeitarchivierung
- Netzwerk arXiv-DH – Unterstützung von arXiv.org als Kommunikationsplattform für die Wissenschaft
- Open Archives Initiative (OAI)
- Open Library of Humanities
- Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3)
Open Access Officer of Humboldt-Universität
The Director of the University Library, Martin Lee, is also the Open Access Officer of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and is charged with implementing the Open Access Policy.
Martin Lee, Director of the University Library
martin.lee(at)ub.hu-berlin.de
Phone: +49 30 2093-99300
For all enquiries regarding Open Access issues (e.g. the Open Access publication funds, second publications and the edoc server) as well as consulting opportunities, please contact the Open Access team of the University Library.
Contact Enquiries and advice
Concerns about Open Access (funding, secondary publication, legal questions, etc.)
Open Access Team of the University Library
E-mail: openaccess@ub.hu-berlin.de (preferred method of contact)
Telephone: +49 30 2093-99222
Concerns regarding the publication server/edoc server (support for authors, technical requirements, etc.)
technical requirements, etc.)
Electronic Publishing Working Group
E-mail: edoc@hu-berlin.de (preferred method of contact)
Telephone: +49 30 2093-70073