Open Access & Publishing – Funding, Visibility and Open Access to Scientific Results

As of March 27th, 2024 the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam has been participating in a transformative open access agreement with the publisher Elsevier. This allows authors from the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam with submitting corresponding author status to publish open access articles in more than 2,500 Elsevier journals, including Cell Press and The Lancet. The fee for publications in hybrid journals is 2,500 euro.  

Invoices are issued centrally to the library. Publication fees can be covered if the library has sufficient funds. Feel free to contact us in advance! Please also check in advance whether you have third-party funds available to co-finance the publication.

Authors also receive a 20% discount on publication fees for Elsevier fully open access journals. The contract term is limited to 2028. As a participating institution, the FHP receives access rights to almost the entire Elsevier journal portfolio.

Since 01.01.2020, the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam has been participating in a DEAL contract with the publisher Springer Nature. Retroactive to the year of publication 1997, this enables permanent access to the current journal volumes of the contract period of all approximately 2000 journals.

Since 2020, all corresponding authors of the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences can publish Open Access in a large number of journals of the publisher within the framework of the contract agreement. The fee for publications in hybrid journals is 2,500 euro. Please ensure that the affiliation is correctly stated when submitting.

Invoices are issued centrally to the library. Publication fees can be covered if the library has sufficient funds. Feel free to contact us in advance! Please also check in advance whether you have third-party funds available to co-finance the publication.

• List of Springer Nature journals included in the contract
• Instructions for authors (Springer Nature)

Since 01.01.2019, the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam has a DEAL contract with the publisher Wiley. This agreement provides access to approximately 1,700 journals.

All corresponding authors of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam can publish in a large number of journals of the publisher Wiley within the framework of the contract. The fee for publications in hybrid journals is 2,500 euro. Please note the correct affiliation here as well.

Invoices are issued centrally to the library. Publication fees can be covered if the library has sufficient funds. Feel free to contact us in advance! Please also check in advance whether you have third-party funds available to co-finance the publication.

• List of Wiley journals included in the contract
• Open Access Workflow (Wiley)
• Hybrid Open Access Workflow (Wiley)

The University of Applied Sciences Potsdam participates in the OA transformation agreement "ACM Open" with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This enables all authors of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam with the status corresponding author to publish unlimited in the scientific journals and at conferences of the ACM. There are no further publication feed for publishers. In addition, the FH Potsdam has access to the ACM Digital Library.

• instruction for authors

The Potsdam University of Applied Sciences participates in an open access transformation framework agreement for the PsyJOURNALS published by Hogrefe. Please contact us if you have any questions.

• FAQ for authors
• List of journals in the PsyJOURNAL portfolio included in the contract

The University of Applied Sciences Potsdam is participating in an open access transformation contract for the entire "HSS" (Humanities and Social Sciences) portfolio at De Gruyter and enables authors from the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam to publish in selected De Gruyter journals free of charge as corresponding author in open access. The contract period is limited to 2022.

• Notes for journal authors

The University of Applied Sciences Potsdam participates in an Open Access transformation agreement with the publisher Taylor & Francis. This enables authors of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam as corresponding author to publish Open Access articles free of charge in all hybrid journals. FHP authors also receive a 15% discount on article fees for publications in pure open access journals from Taylor & Francis. The contract was initially negotiated for 3 years, from 2024 to 2026.

• List of Taylor & Francis journals included in the contract

If you are planning to publish a monograph, as a member of the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences you can apply for reimbursement of the open access publication costs from the Publication Fund for Open Access Monographs of the State of Brandenburg. The publication fund is provided by the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg (MWFK) and coordinated by the team of the Networking and Competence Centre Open Access Brandenburg. The funding instrument is endowed with 100,000 euros per year for the years 2021 to 2023.

• Website with application form

• Scientific publications are to be made accessible without restriction, thus making publicly funded research available to the general public in the process of digital transformation.
• The Internet is to be promoted as an instrument for a worldwide basis of scientific knowledge and human reflection, and the necessary measures are to be formulated for consideration by decision-makers, research organisations, funding institutions, libraries, archives and museums.
• In addition to conventional methods, the new possibilities of disseminating knowledge via the internet according to the principle of open access (open access paradigm) must increasingly be promoted.
• The signatory institutions of the Berlin Declaration define open access or 'OA' as a comprehensive source of human knowledge and cultural heritage endorsed by the scientific community.
• The vision of a comprehensive and freely accessible representation of knowledge can only be realised if the internet of the future is characterised by sustainability, interactivity and transparency. Content and software must be openly accessible and compatible.

Berlin Declaration (English)

• One of DORA's goals is to highlight the value of open access publications for scientific CVs.
• DORA opposes the excessive weighting of quantitative parameters such as the journal impact factor in the assessment of scientific achievements.
• By signing DORA, the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam advocates an assessment practice that focuses on professional quality and impact on science and society while appreciating all facets of scientific output.

San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment

We would like to ask you to adhere to the"Statutes for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice and Dealing with Scientific Misconduct at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam" (28.07.2022) and the"Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice" code written by the German Research Foundation (DFG) (01.07.2019) when preparing a scientific publication.

Please note: The content presented is for general information purposes and does not constitute legal advice in the strict sense.

Licences are generally used in Open Access publications to extend the use of the publications beyond the framework set by copyright law and to enable better dissemination of the publications. Standard licence agreements, the Creative Commons licences, also often called "CC licences", have become established. The author's moral rights are not affected by a Creative Commons licence, i.e. the author must be named for each use.

• Licence generator from Creative Commons
• Comprehensive FAQ from Creative Commons Germany
• Why CC BY is the Best Choice for Open Access Publishing

For works published after 01.01.2014, the right of secondary publication under Section 38 (4) of the Copyright Act (UrhG) applies. According to this, many journal articles may be republished twelve months after the first publication. Only the so-called "accepted manuscript" (version after scientific peer review) may be used for this purpose. This right applies to authors at universities whose work was at least half financed by public project funding.

If this does not apply to your publication, please note the following:

• According to Section 38(1) of the Copyright Act, authors may publish their work elsewhere one year after publication in a periodically published collection (journal, anthology, etc.), unless otherwise agreed.
• Secondary publication is possible without restriction and immediately if you have only granted the publisher a simple right of use or have expressly reserved the right to parallel publication.

The clear identification of authors with the scientific institution to which they belong is of great importance in publishing. It makes it possible or easier to reliably link one's own name to one's own publications, workplace or funding organisation, to distinguish oneself from other researchers with the same name in the same subject area and to make oneself permanently traceable.

The "Open Researcher and Contributor ID" (ORCID) offers a reliable standard for all actors in the academic system. The university library recommends that all researchers apply for an ORCID free of charge and use it when submitting an article or, for example, a proposal for external funding.

The term "predatory publishing" refers to negative phenomena in the scientific publication and communication system. Predatory journals are journals that use aggressive advertising and a professional appearance to invite researchers to publish articles in return for a publication fee, but do not provide the expected editorial and publishing services. Quality control through peer review is merely feigned.

How can you protect yourself?

Deciding which journal to publish in should always be a considered and informed decision, especially if you have little knowledge of the journal. The initiative"Think Check Submit", which is supported by publishing and library associations, provides researchers with a helpful checklist that can be used to check the trustworthiness and seriousness of a scientific journal.