DFG again supports MHB publishing fund.

Neuruppin, 18 February 2022

The German Research Foundation recently announced support for the publishing fund of the Brandenburg Medical School (MHB) for the second time in succession. The MHB is to receive ca. 60,000 € for open access publications for the next three years.

Andreas Winkelmann, professor of anatomy and MHB library commissioner, has the details: “Our publication fund which is co-financed by the Brandenburg government assumes costs for academic articles written by MHB scientists to appear on their request in open access journals, i.e. free of charge and publicly accessible.”

Anett Grest, in charge of the MHB library, submitted the application to the DFG together with Prof. Winkelmann. She welcomes this support for the young university and its young researchers, specifically the first doctoral candidates who right from the start of their academic career can use the open access mode to publish their theses without financial risks.

Publishing practice is undergoing radical change

Up to now, universities have to pay publishers a lot of money for licenses to get access to latest research findings and to read and download academic literature. Prof. Winkelmann: “We are currently in the middle of a transition period, the idea being to replace obligatory payment for access to scientific literature by payment for publication of an article. The background of this paradigm shift is the fact that scientific research is largely publicly funded as a rule. Findings won from this state-financed research should therefore be publicly accessible. We are glad to note that the DFG supports our efforts in this respect and that our second application has again been successful. For the MHB with its large number of cooperating partners the open access format is clearly the better model. It would be virtually impossible to finance licenses to give all these facilities and institutions access to scientific literature.”

Another important aspect is that copyright exploitation rights remain with the authors of open access publications, not with the publishers exclusively. This means that an open access publication may be redistributed and re-used by others.

For additional information on the MHB open access publication fund see here.