Open access publication fund at the University of Münster

Funding for articles in open access journals

Conditions

Funding from the open access publication fund is subject to the following conditions:

• The articles are published in "pure" open access journals: All articles of the journal are accessible to users free of charge via the Internet immediately upon publication.
  Articles appearing in so-called hybrid journals – requiring subscription and offering "open access options" or "Open Choice" models) – or articles in Mirror Journals are not eligible.
• The journal applies the strict quality assurance procedures recognized in the respective subject.
  For journals not listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals, the ULB reserves the right to assess individual cases.
  Reimbursement for articles in journals showing signs of predatory publishing is not possible.
• Only articles for which a member of the University of Münster is responsible for paying the publication fees as "submitting author" or "corresponding author" will be funded.
• Since January 1st, 2023, funding for employees at teaching hospitals of the University of Münster who are not also members the University or the UKM is no longer possible.
  Reimbursement for members of the Department of "Paediatric Orthopaedics, Deformity Reconstruction, Foot Surgery" of the University Hospital is not possible.
• The corresponding and submitting authors of the articles in question who are members of the University of Münster have to have an ORCID iD. 
• Only such articles are funded that are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY license. If journals offer a choice between an in-house licence and a CC license, the CC one has to be choosen. This applies e.g. in case of the Journals of the Optica Publishing Group (formerly Optical Society of America (OSA)) or the Journals of the American Meterological Socienty (AMS).
• From 01.06.2022 on, there will be no limit on the amount of publication fees. The costs for all articles will be distributed to the ULB and the faculties in the following year according to the distribution principles determined by the License Commission of the University of Münster. The ULB bears one third of up to €2,000 per article, while the departments bear two thirds of the amount up to €2,000 as well as any costs above this per article.
• Only requests for refunds where the invoice date of the original invoice from the publisher is no more than 90 days ago can be considered.
• Articles funded by the publication fund must include a reference to the support (e.g., "We acknowledge support from the open access publication fund of the University of Münster.").

If your publication is part of a DFG-funded project, please contact us so that we can check whether funding from the publication fund is possible.

Procedure

If you have published an article in an open access journal, you first have to pay the invoice and then submit a refunding request to the open access fund. If you have any questions, we are happy to help even before the article is published.

Please note the following instructions regarding the process to ensure a speedy refund:

• You publish in an open access journal that meets the above mentioned requirements.
• For reimbursement,  you send the documents to the ULB Münster for the attention of Dr. Viola Voß or Jessica Thomas, Krummer Timpen 3, 48143 Münster.
  At the ULB, a formal check will be made once again to ensure that all conditions are met before payment is made.
  • Please submit the following documents:
    • an invoice for the refund of publication fees (example),
    • a copy of the original invoice from the publisher, and
    • a proof of payment, e.g. SAP booking receipt (incl. VAT payment).
  • The publisher invoice should give your name and your institute of the university or the clinical center as billing address as well as the title of the article.
    Please make sure that invoices from other European countries do not include VAT and that the VAT number of the university (DE 126 118 759) or the UKM (DE 212 275 725) is noted.
    If you have not paid the bill through an institution account, but have made private advance payments, please note: We can only reimburse invoices issued to us by the university hospital (UKM) or an institute of the University of Münster. This means: You must have the costs refunded by the UKM or your institute, and the UKM or your institute can then recover the costs through the fund.
  • For accounting reasons, we need at least the refund invoice pn paper. Invoices from members of the university can also be submitted as a digitally signed PDF file via email; this is not possible for invoices from members of the university hospital.
  • If you have any questions regarding invoice details, please contact Mr. Rafalski (e-mail, phone +49 (0) 251 83-24024).
  • If you have not received a confirmation of receipt from the ULB Open Access team two weeks after submitting your documents, please contact us by e-mail.
  • Invoices are processed in the order of arrival.
• You enter your article in the research portal of Münster University.
• Additionally, your make your article available via the university publication server miami.
  To do so, send us an e-mail to miami@uni-muenster.de, including:
  • Your article in PDF/A format, or alternatively the DOI or link to your publication on the publisher's site, and
  • the Consent for the publication of a digital publication in miami.

We will inform you as soon as your article has been published.

Overview of articles supported by the open access publication fund

Funding for open access monographs and anthologies

There are some basic criteria, which can be further restricted by more specific regulations of the faculties of the University of Münster. If a faculty waives participation in the publication fund, members of that department are not eligible for funding.

Requirements for funding the publication of a monograph or an anthology

Funding from the open access monographs publication fund is subject to the following basic conditions:

Authors and editors

• The author of a monograph or the editor of an anthology is member of the University of Münster. The University affiliation of the authors must be clearly recognizable in the publication.
• Authors or editors from among the students are eligible for funding from the master's program onwards.
• The applicants have an ORCID iD.

Quality assurance and licenses

• Publications go through a peer review process, as is common for publishers listed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), for example.
• The publications should be oriented towards the  quality standards for open access books of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Universitätsverlage  or the  quality standards for making books open access by the National Contact Point Open Access OA2020-DE.
• The printed and electronic versions of the publication are published simultaneously, i.e. without an embargo period for the electronic version.
• Publications are published directly under an open access compliant license (e.g., a Creative Commons license).
• On the publisher's website, as well as in the electronic version and any parallel print version, publications will be clearly and prominently identified as open access publications.
• The publications should contain a note that they were supported by the publication fund of the University of Münster.
• Funded publications are made available on the publication server of the Unviersity of Münster, miami.

Refundable costs

• Applicants must submit one or more offers from publishers indicating the specific costs of making the publication open access. Only open access publication fees are eligible for funding; printing costs, typesetting costs, surcharges for color, volume, etc. cannot be funded.
• Funding per publication is limited to a maximum of EUR 3,500 gross.
• The combination of funding with other funds is possible. Publications that have been produced as part of externally funded projects and for which publication funds are available for full financing cannot be funded.

Deadlines and limitations

• Funding is only possible for works not yet published at the time of application.
• Applications can be submitted informally by e-mail to the ULB throughout the year. The faculties' decisions on these applications are made in April/May and October/November of each year.
• The approval for funding is valid for a period of 12 months. If the planned publication cannot take place within this period, a new application must be submitted.
• Funding is limited to two publications per author or editor per year.
• Applications for funding will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis until funds are exhausted.
• Dissertations written at University of Münster are eligible if they have been evaluated with at least "magna cum laude"; bachelor's and master's theses are not eligible for funding.
• Publications in the "Wissenschaftliche Schriften der University of Münster" and in the "FID Benelux - open access publications" are excluded from funding.
• Additional criteria may apply for the faculty to which the authors or editors belong (see below).
• In case you are planning a book publication as part of a project funded by the DFG, please contact us; in this case the faculty-specific criteria do not apply as there is a special funds available for DFG-related publications.

Department-specific criteria

Procedure

• Applications may be submitted informally to the ULB throughout the year.
• Interested parties please contact the ULB open access team by e-mail.
• Applicants must submit one or more offers from publishers indicating the specific costs of making the publication openly accessible. In addition to the offers from the publishers, an abstract for the publication must be submitted.
• The ULB reviews incoming applications for compliance with basic and faculty-specific formal criteria.
  • If a faculty reserves the right to make a funding decision: ULB collects applications by 01.04. and 01.10. as deadlines and forwards them to the appropriate faculties for decision; faculties return their decisions to the ULB within 6 weeks.
  • If there are only formal criteria and the faculty does not have to decide in individual cases: the applications can be decided by the ULB and then processed further.
• The ULB informs the applicants and, in case of a positive decision, takes care of the financial processing of the funding project including the settlement with the faculty as well as the second publication on miami.
• The costs for the refunds will be distributed to the ULB and the faculties in the following year according to the distribution principles determined by the License Commission of the University of Münster. The ULB bears one third of the amount, while the departments bear two thirds.

Overview of monographs and anthology contributions supported by the open access fund