As a signatory of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, the FWF is committed to advancing sustained open access to scholarly publications and research data. To this end, the FWF requires and supports all project leaders and project staff members to make their peer-reviewed research outputs freely available through the internet, if they result in full or in part from projects funded by the FWF.

The Open Access Policy consists of the following elements:

I. Open Access to Peer-Reviewed Publications 
II. Open Access to Peer-Reviewed Book Publications
III. Open Access to Research Data

To further the transition to open access in the scholarly publication system, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) annually supports the following open access infrastructures and platforms.

Open Access Infrastructures

In recent years, an increasing number of researchers from all fields have been supporting efforts to make scientific publications freely available on the Internet (open access). In 2012, following the Dutch model of “the experts speak”, more than 40 outstanding researchers in Austria (incl. some Austrians abroad) from all branches of sciences and the humanities, from different institutions as well as from different age groups, were asked why they practice open access in one way or the other and why they think open access is important. For a list of the researchers and their testimonials.

Open Access Testimonials

The FWF conducts an annual monitoring of compliance with the Open Access Policy and publishes the results online.

Since 2013, a monitoring of the publication costs financed through the "Peer-Reviewed Publications" and "Stand-Alone Publications" programmes is also carried out and published online.

For an overview on why open access and open science help promote scientific research, please see McKiernan et al (2016) “How open science helps researchers succeed”

The FWF provides financial support for the publication of peer-reviewed open access publications within the framework of the following programmes:

• Stand-Alone Publications (for peer-reviewed book publications such as monographs, edited volumes, etc.)
• Peer-reviewed Publications (for peer-reviewed scholarly publications in academic journals, platforms, edited volumes, or proceedings).
   

FWF Contact
Katharina Rieck