Austrian Open Access Agreement with Publisher Frontiers
Publishing Date:
Under a landmark Open Access Publishing Framework Agreement signed in Vienna on December 20th, 2017 between the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the University of Vienna and the publisher Frontiers, Austrian researchers affiliated to or supported through these institutions may from January 1st, 2018 publish their articles in Frontiers’ open-access journals through a simplified process that covers article processing charges. In addition to a national discount and centralized invoicing process, the Austrian signatory institutions benefit from a transparent and comprehensive reporting on expenditures and research outputs at an institutional and a national level.
The national agreement is open to any academic research and research funding institution based in Austria. Additional signatories will benefit from the same terms and conditions, regardless of the size of the institution or research output. The agreement is openly available under the following link: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1118688
Klement Tockner, President of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) emphasised, “The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) is pleased to be one of the first signatories of the fully transparent Gold Open Access Agreement with Frontiers. Transparency of costs, conditions and services is a precondition to strengthen Open Science; hence, this agreement may serve as a role model in terms of openness for further agreements.”
Regina Hitzenberger, Vice Rector at the University of Vienna, said, “We are proud to be a signatory to this cost-effective and innovative open-access publishing Agreement, which will extend and strengthen Open Science in Austria.”
Kamila Markram, Co-Founder and CEO of Frontiers, said, “A full transition to Open Science has the potential to accelerate scientific discovery to the benefit of humanity. We thank the Austrian Science Fund and the University of Vienna who, as initial signatories to this landmark Open Access Publishing Framework Agreement, are leading the way in this transition – and we look forward to the participation of other Austrian institutions.”
The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) is Austria’s central funding organisation for basic research. Applying international quality benchmarks, the FWF provides funding for outstanding research projects and excellent researchers who work to generate, broaden and deepen scientific knowledge. The FWF has been a strong supporter of open access for more than a decade and coordinator of the Open Access Network Austria (OANA).
The University of Vienna is one of the oldest universities in Europe and the largest provider of tertiary education in Austria: 19 faculties and centres house about 9,500 members of staff (among them 6,600 researchers) and 94,000 national and international students. It offers 174 degree programmes, which makes its range of studies the most diversified in the country.
Frontiers is an award-winning Open Science platform and leading open-access scholarly publisher. Frontiers’ mission is to make high-quality, peer-reviewed research articles rapidly and freely available to everybody in the world, thereby accelerating scientific and technological innovation, societal progress and economic growth. Frontiers received the 2014 ALPSP Gold Award for Innovation in Publishing.