FAQ – frequently asked questions

The publication fund finances works for which the applicants are members of one of the eight state universities and colleges in Brandenburg at the time of application. These are:

• Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus-Senftenberg
• European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
• University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
• Filmuniversity Konrad Wolf Babelsberg
• Eberswalde University for Sustainable Develepment
• Technical University of Applied Sciences Brandenburg
• Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau
• University of Potsdam

Applications from former members may be considered if the research underlying the publication was mainly carried out during the period of membership at the university (e.g. dissertations written at a Brandenburg university). Emeritus professors of the universities are also considered members of the universities and are also eligible to apply.

Due to limited funds, only one application per person per year can be approved.

Yes. According to § 60 of the Brandenburg Higher Education Act, doctoral students are members of the respective university.

Publications in so–called hybrid collections are not eligible for funding.

Yes. It is sufficient if one publisher is eligible to apply.

Yes. Works that promote the transfer of knowledge from science into practice and other areas of society are expressly eligible for funding in accordance with the funding objectives of the Publication Fund.

Ideally, you should already be in contract negotiations with a publisher at the time of application, or at least have already made contact. Please feel free to contact us in advance if you have any questions about choosing a publisher or negotiating with them.

You can also use the oa.finder to find suitable book publishers that offer golden open access.

Only once your dissertation has been completed and assessed is it time to decide on publication. There are various options, including publication by a publisher or via your university’s publication server (repository). Dissertations are also revised to varying degrees before publication. Once you have made a decision and the costs are known, you are welcome to submit an application.

Please note that only dissertations with a grade of ‘summa cum laude’ are eligible for funding.

Open Access Brandenburg makes funding decisions based on a series of formal criteria. In particular, it aims to ensure free availability and reusability as an open access publication and status as a ‘scientific publication’. The appropriateness and transparency of the costs applied for are also checked. The funding criteria are regularly evaluated and adjusted in collaboration with the Open Access Brandenburg working group. Representatives of all eight Brandenburg university libraries are involved in the working group.

Funding is generally approved if the criteria are met. If certain criteria are not met, we will contact you to clarify whether the relevant points can be adjusted in consultation with the publisher.

No. We only check the formal requirements for cost coverage. The quality of the content of the publication is usually guaranteed by the publisher’s quality assurance process.

We will aim to process your application as quickly as possible. It may take up to two weeks before you receive a response. It is possible that a funding decision may only be made after a longer delay (cut–off date rule).

Yes. Please agree with the publisher that the following reference to funding from the Publication Fund will be included: ‘This publication was supported by funds from the Publication Fund for Open Access Monographs of the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany.’ This note should normally appear in the imprint and on the publisher’s website for the publication. We are also happy to provide a logo of the MWFK, which provides the funding, for this purpose.

The invoice is usually sent by the publisher after publication and should be addressed directly to Open Access Brandenburg:

Vernetzungs- und Kompetenzstelle Open Access Brandenburg
FB 5 – Informationswissenschaften Fachhochschule Potsdam
Kiepenheuerallee 5
14469 Potsdam

Digital invoicing to fonds@open-access-brandenburg.de is ideal.

Please remind your publisher to include the VAT ID number of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam when invoicing: DE 811920300. 

Yes. Of course, the funding can cover all costs incurred in the production of a full-fledged publication. Only printing costs arising from a possible parallel print edition are not covered. You will find a sample calculation showing typical cost types (e.g., typesetting, layout, overheads) on this page.

One of the essential requirements for publication fund funding is transparent cost breakdowns from publishers. Here you will find an example of such a breakdown.

For further guidance, you can refer to the data set with publisher cost breakdowns for a total of 33 funding projects, which VuK published in February 2024 (German only).

We require a partial invoice from the publisher for the amount we have approved.

No. Only services provided by the publisher for open access publication are taken into account. Credit card and bank charges cannot be settled via the publication fund.

The maximum subsidy amount for invoices from abroad is also 6,000 Euro. Billing is carried out using the reverse charge procedure, meaning that Open Access Brandenburg covers the applicable VAT of 19%. The corresponding VAT amount is deducted from the maximum subsidy amount.

We recommend the Creative Commons licence variant CC BY 4.0, which is open access compliant in all cases and only requires attribution as a condition. Alternatively, you can also choose CC BY-SA 4.0, which, in addition to attribution, requires that any adaptations be shared under the same licence terms. You can also choose a different Creative Commons licence, but please note that these are no longer genuine open access licences, as content covered by them can no longer be shared completely freely.

Yes.

Not according to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, because it does not specify that use may only be for non-commercial purposes.

The distinction between commercial and non-commercial use is difficult to define, so we recommend the most open licence option (CC BY) in order not to exclude certain reuse scenarios.

Non-commercial use is defined as use that is ‘not primarily aimed at commercial advantage or monetary compensation’.

For more information, see the Creative Commons FAQ.

The definition of open access in the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities states:

“The author(s) and right holder(s) of such contributions grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a licence to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship (community standards will continue to provide the mechanism for enforcement of proper attribution and responsible use of the published work, as they do now), as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.” 

Only the CC–BY and CC–BY–SA licence variants fully meet these conditions.

Publishers often use standard contracts that were created for traditional, closed-access publications, in which authors transfer exclusive rights of use for their work to the publishers. To ensure that you, as the author, retain the rights of use for your work, please note in the relevant passage that the publisher is only granted ‘simple’ and not ‘exclusive’ rights of use. If your contract grants exclusive rights of use to the publisher, we recommend that you check with the relevant editorial department and/or the publisher’s rights department to see whether the clause can be amended. In many cases, this is possible.

With the interactive contract generator from the AuROA project (German only), you can generate an open access-compliant publication contract for your publication. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding this matter.

For all materials that are protected by copyright, licences can be used to release the materials for use (copying, distribution, etc.). However, for anything that is in the public domain, i.e., free of copyright (because the copyright has expired or because there is no copyright in the first place), a licence is not necessary because the law already permits its use. In this case, this status can be indicated with a note (e.g., the Public Domain Mark). This makes it easier for the public to recognise the status of the materials.

Yes, that is possible.

As an author, you need all exclusive rights of use for CC licensing. It therefore depends on the rights of use that were transferred in the collection agreement. As an author, you have the option of excluding the transfer of exclusive rights of use to VG Wort, thereby ensuring full compatibility with CC licensing.

No, because CC licences are irrevocable. However, the licensor may grant a publisher the right to share the text without a CC licence.

In any case, you should be aware that when using Creative Commons licences, you largely give up control over the use and distribution of the materials. This effect is precisely what is desired with free licensing. In practice, there are only a few cases in which such reuse has become public to the annoyance of the authors.

Even if you cannot prohibit the general reuse of this publisher’s work, as a licensor you can, for example, insist that your name be removed in the context of a specific use.

Yes. A Creative Commons licence for the entire work does not preclude copyright protection for individual components. The relevant exceptions are usually declared in the imprint. Please clarify the rights for the reproduction of the content in your work yourself in advance. Costs associated with the image material for the publication can be covered by the publication fund. This also applies to costs incurred for the acquisition of rights, as long as these are within a normal and reasonable range.

You do not need to specify the machine-readable version. You can obtain the pictograms here, where you will also find instructions on how to embed them.

You must also cite the source of the original. However, the question is whether your adaptation gives rise to your own copyright, i.e., whether your adaptation is original enough. For example, you do not acquire your own copyright if you simply convert a colour template into a black-and-white image. You can find another example here.

Detailed FAQs on CC licences can be found here. In addition, Open Access Brandenburg offered a training course with Fabian Rack (iRights.Law) in June 2022, the slides of which can be found here (German only).

Generally speaking, you should have decided on your publisher before applying. However, if problems arise with your publisher after the fact, particularly with regard to an open access position that complies with the application, we will of course support a change of publisher and will be happy to advise you in this regard.

We are glad to offer the publisher a consultation in which we can clarify how it can meet the requirements of the publication fund.

Yes. Such publication channels are also expressly supported by the publication fund. Please contact us so that we can clarify how scientific quality is guaranteed.

The aim of the fund is to give equal consideration to the needs of all Brandenburg universities. Therefore, the balanced distribution of funds is an issue that the AG Open Access Brandenburg, together with Open Access Brandenburg, keeps in mind. The VuK does not decide on the distribution of funds independently, but always in consultation with all institutions.

Es gibt verschiedene Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten für Open-Access-Veröffentlichungen an Brandenburger Hochschulen und Universitäten, von denen der von der VuK verwaltete Publikationsfonds für Open-Access-Monografien des Landes Brandenburg nur eine ist. So profitieren Angehörige der Universität Potsdam beispielsweise von zusätzlichen Fördermittel für Open-Access-Bücher, die allerdings ebenfalls über diese Seite hier beantragt werden können. Sollten Sie Mittel für eine andere Publikationsart benötigen oder zusätzliche Mittel für einen Publikationsfonds-Antrag, wenden Sie sich an Ihre Ansprechperson an Ihrer Bibliothek vor Ort.

There are various funding options for open access publications at Brandenburg’s universities, of which the publication fund for open access monographs administered by VuK is just one. For example, members of the University of Potsdam benefit from additional funding for open access books, which can also be applied for via this page. If you require funding for another type of publication or additional funds for a publication fund application, please contact your local library contact person.

The publication fund for open access monographs is expected to be administered by Open Access Brandenburg until the end of 2028, so you can submit an application until the end of 2027.