European research performing organisations (RPOs) have established open access policies that also come with a funding arm. Some RPOs and their libraries commit to open access for books, often by managing dedicated open access publication funds. This article looks at various funding mechanisms and the conditions and limitations of such funding.
Universities and research organisations can fund open access books centrally. Institutions and academic libraries often manage open access publication funds that are aligned with a country’s strategy, as in Switzerland, or on the individual institution level, such as the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Free University of Berlin or at the Erasmus University Library, which has a dedicated fund for books1. Some faculties have their own annual open access funds. RPOs that provide such funding can be seen in countries where national open access strategies for books exist, including where research funders mandate and provide funding, although this is not always the case.
Some organisations define the types of book publications they fund: monographs, book chapters, other edited scientific works or dissertations. Whilst some provide funding regardless of the publisher or discipline, others may stipulate conditions such as the work not having been published previously, that it is peer reviewed or that the entire edited collection is published open access, for instance at the University of Zurich or Bergen2. In some cases, publishing with any open access book publisher suffices whereas in other cases it may be a requirement that the publisher is listed in DOAB (Lund University), in a national register or that they follow national publishing requirements or standards, such as at Helmholtz3. In some instances, funds can be applied for if certain conditions are met, for example for innovation in HSS and economics as at the University of Potsdam4. Occasionally, universities are prepared to fund only certain processes and not, for example, printing or typesetting costs, surcharges for colours, more than one volume, for instance as seen at the University of Konstanz5. Some set a wide range of requirements to maintain excellent open access standards which need to be complied with before funding is granted, for example at the University of Zurich for the SSH or University of Trier. Such requirements might involve the publisher transparently calculating and communicating its fees, the publication being openly licensed, the publication having a DOI or URN and that ORCIDs are used and deposited in the local repository, etc.6 Furthermore, it stipulates that any print version may only be made available after the open access version has appeared.
Authors affiliated with the research organisation, for example employees, emeriti or PhD candidates, can apply in advance or at any time during the publication process. In some institutions, funds are provided for a maximum of three publications per author per year, as in the case of the University of Zurich7.
Certain funds are only available for a specific time frame, for example a requirement that the funded work be published within 12 months, such as at higher education institutions in Berlin like the HU Berlin. However, sometimes additional funding can be applied for if more time is needed8. Some organisations allow funds to be combined with additional resources, whereas others only accept applications if no alternative funding streams are available, which is the case at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, or if the grant period has expired9. Funds can also be used to bridge funding gaps between caps and costs.
Policies can specify certain funding models such as the BPC. However, in the PALOMERA collection, the BPC is not frequently mentioned. Knowledge Unlatched has also been mentioned as a model where the library shares the costs of publishing an open access book. For more on models, see here. Policies tend to focus more on what they will fund rather than limiting themselves to a certain funding model.
Some institutions set caps on what they fund. These caps can range from 2,000 to 15,000 €, although it is not always clear how these figures are calculated. The level of costs can, for example, depend on the type of open access book, as at the University of Konstanz10. Whereas some institutions provide more funds to authors who have made multiple contributions to one edited collection, others can limit the annual amount of funds issued to individuals or research groups, as seen at the University of Zurich11. Institutions can also become involved in determining the caps by negotiating on BPC levels, as at the Max Planck Gesellschaft12.
Where the organisations source their funds from can differ. In Germany, some federal funding includes open access costs as an eligible cost, and certain regions provide publication funds of 100,000 € per year to its authors, for example in the Federal State of Brandenburg13. Many institutions earmark funds from local institutional budgets or use block grants from research funders. It should be pointed out that how institutions organise their funding is not always included in their policy pages or documents.
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4 Book Fund, Lund University; University of Potsdam. Open Access Strategy
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5 Open Access Books, Funding Open Access, Universitaet Konstanz
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6 Förderrichtlinien Juli 2022, Richtlinien zum Open Access-Publikationsfonds für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, Bibliothek der Universitaet Zuerich; University of Trier. Förderkriterien für Open-Access-Monographien und -Sammelbände.
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10 Open Access Books, Funding Open Access, Universitaet Konstanz.
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13 Publication Fund for Open Access Monographs of the Federal State of Brandenburg.
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