Financing open access
The University Library participates in numerous projects to promote open access in science and create favorable financing conditions.
Contracts with scientific publishers — including transformation agreements such as DEAL — provide access to publisher portfolios and offer discounted terms for open access publications. In some contract models, invoicing is handled by the University Library. In addition, publication costs can be subsidized by the LMU Open Access Fund, provided that the requirements are met. The University Library also promotes open, digital infrastructures and participates in community-based financing models.
Open Access Fund
All members of LMU who are corresponding authors of an open access publication can apply for a fixed subsidy for open access publication fees (APC) from the LMU Open Access Fund, which is financed by the German Research Foundation.
Requirements for funding include publication in Gold Open Access and the implementation of a professionally recognized quality control procedure.
Publishing agreements for open access publishing
The following requirements must be met in order to be eligible for the agreements with various publishers, both in hybrid and gold open access:
- The corresponding author is an active member of LMU.
- The research was predominantly conducted at LMU.
- LMU is listed as the main affiliation in the article.
- The submission is made using a valid LMU e-mail address.
When specifying your affiliation, please use the official name of the university.
Publication fees by publisher
From January 1, 2021, LMU members can publish free of charge in AIP's hybrid journals within a quota set by the consortium if they are the corresponding author. The titles “Biophysics Reviews” and “Chemical Physics Reviews” are excluded from this. The articles are published under the CC-BY license. The quota is made available on a first-come, first-served basis. If it is exhausted, fees of USD 3,500 per article will apply. The publisher's gold open access journals are not included.
LMU members who are corresponding authors can publish their articles in hybrid journals free of charge in open access under the CC BY license.
Title list APS (141 KB)
Corresponding authors from LMU do not incur any APCs and receive a discount on page charges.
As corresponding authors, LMU members receive a 50% discount on open access publication fees in all Bentham Science journals.
When submitting your manuscript, please indicate LMU as your institution and provide your institutional email address.
LMU members receive a 25% discount on publication fees in BMJ's gold open access journals as corresponding authors. This also applies to The British Medical Journal (The BMJ). The corresponding author will receive the invoice directly from the publisher.
In addition, all authors from participating institutions can publish free of charge in the journals of the BMJ Journals Online Standard Collection in hybrid open access if they are the corresponding author and the article is a research article. Hybrid open access articles are published under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.
Information for authors: BMJ Author Hub
Title list 2022 BMJ Standard Collection and Gold open access journals(11 KB)
Since January 1, 2019, LMU members can publish as corresponding authors in all hybrid journals of Cambridge University Press as part of a Germany-wide consortium, without restriction and free of charge. From January 2022, unlimited free publication will also be possible in the publisher's gold open access journals.
Approved article types:
- Research Articles
- Review Articles
- Rapid Communications
- Brief Reports
- Case Reports
The articles will be made open access immediately upon publication and, unless another license is preferred, under a CC-BY license.
Cambridge Journals Title List (198 KB)
Publisher information: “Read and Publish agreement with Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Germany”
LMU members who publish as corresponding authors in Cogitatio Press journals can publish open access free of charge. When submitting your manuscript, please indicate LMU as your institution and provide your institutional e-mail address.
Starting January 1, 2023, LMU members who publish as corresponding authors in journals published by Copernicus Publications will receive the invoice for publication fees from the University Library. If the funding requirements for the LMU Open Access Fund are met, the funding amount will automatically be included in the invoice.
LMU members receive a 10% discount on publication fees in Frontiers journals as corresponding authors.
The invoice is initially paid by the University Library. After the publication has appeared, the University Library invoices the LMU institution of the corresponding author for the fees plus 19% VAT. If the funding requirements for the LMU Open Access Fund are met, the funding amount is automatically included in the invoice.
Starting in January 2023, LMU members can publish as corresponding authors free of charge and without embargo under a CC BY 4.0 license in 53 hybrid journals and 21 gold open access journals published by the publisher.
Title list IOP Journals 2025 (357 KB)
Thanks to a Publish & Read agreement with the Microbiology Society, corresponding authors from LMU can publish in Microbiology Society journals free of charge. Affiliation with LMU is verified via the LMU e-mail domain and affiliation details. Therefore, please be sure to include your institutional e-mail address when submitting your manuscript.
The MDPI publishing house offers over 200 open access journals from various scientific fields. Corresponding authors from LMU receive a 10% discount on publication fees in all MDPI journals. The discount cannot be combined with other reductions (e.g., research society discount codes, review vouchers, or journal invitations).
Please indicate your affiliation with LMU when submitting your article.
Starting in 2022, LMU authors must choose between immediate open access or delayed open access for the publication of their articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
- Immediate Open Access:
The price for an article to be published immediately in open access is USD 5,575 (+ 19% tax) for corresponding authors from LMU. This price includes all fees for articles up to 12 pages in length. The corresponding author can choose between the recommended CC BY license or the CC BY-NC-ND license. - Delayed Open Access:
The price for publishing an article with the delayed open access option is USD 3,025 (+ 19% tax) and includes all fees for articles up to 12 pages in length. All articles published in PNAS are made available in open access after six months. With delayed open access, all articles are published under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
From January 1, 2024, until the end of 2027, corresponding authors from LMU will have the opportunity to publish unlimited articles in 37 hybrid and 17 gold open access journals from RSC under the CC BY license. This will be granted automatically if the corresponding author can be assigned to LMU via their e-mail domain. Therefore, please be sure to include your institutional e-mail address (@....lmu.de, @....uni-muenchen.de, @....med.uni-muenchen.de) when submitting your manuscript; assignment to LMU is based solely on the e-mail address.
SCOAP3 is an international project that makes scientific publications in the field of high-energy physics (HEP) freely accessible worldwide via Gold open access. The project is funded nationally by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
LMU authors can publish free of charge in the following journals:
- Advances in High Energy Physics
- European Physical Journal C
- Journal of High Energy Physics
- Nuclear Physics B
- Physics Letters B
Some journals only contain a proportion of articles from the HEP category. In this case, SCOAP3 will only cover the fees if the article was posted in the main category “HEP” on arXiv before being submitted to the publisher.
- Acta Physica Polonica B
- Chinese Physics C
- Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP)
- Physical Review C (PRC)
- Physical Review D (PRD)
- Physical Review Letters (PRL)
Hybrid journals (Open Select)
Starting January 1, 2024, LMU members who submit a manuscript for a research article as corresponding authors will be able to publish free of charge in all Taylor & Francis Open Select Journals (hybrid journals).
Gold Open Access journals
In the Taylor & Francis Group's "Full Open Access Journals," LMU members receive a 15% discount on publication fees as corresponding authors. The invoice is initially paid by the University Library. After the article has been published, the University Library invoices the LMU institution of the corresponding author for the fees plus 19% VAT. If the eligibility requirements for the LMU Open Access Fund are met, the funding amount is automatically included in the invoice.
Further transformation agreements
As part of Duncker & Humblot's open access consortium offer, the University Library supports the transformation of new publications in the “Schriften zum Bürgerlichen Recht” (Writings on Civil Law) series.
Information about the D&H Open Law Transformation Initiative
The publisher de Gruyter offers a consortium-based, package-based open access model in cooperation with the Göttingen State and University Library. The LMU University Library currently supports the packages German Linguistics (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2027, 9 titles each), German Literature (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 9 titles each) and History (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2027, 9 titles each). In 2020, the University Library participated in the Jewish Studies package (8 titles).
From 2023 to 2028, the University Library will support the open access consortium moderated by the FID Altertumswissenschaften (German Research Center for Classical Studies) for the de Gruyter book series Millennium Studien (approx. 5 titles per year).
These packages will be published in Diamond Open Access without the authors contributing to the publication costs.
As part of the edu_consort_oa joint project, the University Library supports journal crowdfunding within the framework of the FID Education. This will enable four education journals to be published in open access from 2026 to 2027.
The University Library is contributing funds to the OA consortium of the FID Law, which aims to publish 10 book projects from the Mohr Siebeck series “Internet and Society” in open access between 2024 and 2026.
The University Library is participating in the consortium for the open access transformation of the scientific series “Journal for Historical Research. Supplements” by Duncker & Humblot. The goal of the three-year consortium is to publish one volume per year in open access. In addition, the backlist is also to be transformed into open access.
Information on the transformation of the supplements to the Journal for Historical Research
With the Focus Collection Climate Change from the open access service provider Knowledge Unlatched, the LMU University Library participated in 2022 in the financing of a thematic open access package with 20 titles from different publishers and disciplines related to the topic of climate change.
The University Library supports the open access status of the interdisciplinary field of environmental studies by joining the KOALA Environment Consortium, which will run from 2025 to 2027.
By participating in the KOALA Mathematics and Computer Science open access program (2026 – 2028) organized by TIB Hannover, the University Library supports the open access status of six relevant mathematics journals.
Through the FID Media, the University Library is supporting the open access transformation of the two media studies series Bewegtbilder and Yearbook of Moving Image Studies in the pledging process from 2026 to 2028.
As part of the KOALA Quantum Physics bundle (2024 – 2026), the University Library supports the open access publications of the journal Quantum.
Through Knowledge Unlatched, the University Library supports the cooperative financing model of the linguistic specialist publisher Language Science Press. This currently allows 30 titles per year to be published without publication subsidies from the authors.
Together with the Göttingen State and University Library, the humanities publisher Olms Verlag is offering a consortium open access transformation project with no publication costs for authors. The University Library funded this package in the field of history/ancient history (2022, 8 titles).
By participating in the transformation package of the Specialized Information Service for Education and Educational Research, the LMU University Library has been participating in a project since 2022 in which 18 titles from various German publishers (e.g., Budrich, wbv, transcript, Klinkhardt) in the field of pedagogy and educational science are published in open access.
With the support of the SocioHub journal bundle (2026 – 2028) organized by the FID Sociology, the sustainable financing of four relevant open access journals (Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, Gender, Open Gender Journal, and sub\urban) can be promoted.
The “transcript Open Library Media Studies” library consortium was founded as part of a BMBF open access transformation project in collaboration with the Göttingen State and University Library and the Specialized Information Service for Communication and Media Studies (FID Media). Since 2022, it has been funded by the Open Library Community Media Studies library consortium.
Its goal is to open up the media studies program area of transcript Verlag through an open access transformation (Diamond OA) that is free of charge for authors.
The LMU University Library is participating in this project in 2022 (13 titles), 2023 (13 titles), 2024 (13 titles), 2025 (10 titles), and 2026 (10 titles).
The “transcript Open Library Political Science” is an open access package model with the aim of making an entire specialist collection available in open access via crowdfunding. Publication is in gold open access with a publication grant from the author.
The LMU University Library participated in this model in 2019 (20 titles), 2020 (22 titles), 2022 (22 titles), 2023 (22 titles), 2024 (22), 2025 (17 titles), and 2026 (17 titles). The Open Library Political Science now comprises a total of over 400 titles.
Project information transcript Open Library Political Science
By supporting the Verfassungsblog, the LMU University Library, together with the Faculty of Law, is backing a high-quality academic blog that is firmly established in the legal and political science community. While the blog articles are published in open access independently of the funding, the participating institutions support the maintenance and further development of the blog's (technical) infrastructure.
Infrastructure funding
The DOAB is a directory of electronic books whose full texts are freely accessible on the Internet in accordance with the principles of open access.
Das DOAJ ist ein Verzeichnis von elektronischen Fachzeitschriften, deren Volltexte nach den
The DOAJ is a directory of electronic journals whose full texts are freely accessible on the Internet in accordance with the principles of open access. A quality assurance procedure (e.g., peer review) is a prerequisite for inclusion in the DOAJ. Indexing and use are free of charge. Funding is provided 40% by sponsors and 60% by DOAJ members (DOAJ Membership). LMU participates within the Bavarian Consortium.
MPRA stands for Munich Personal RePEC Archive and is a preprint platform for scientific publications in the field of economics. The platform was launched in 2006 and has been hosted by the LMU University Library ever since. The main purpose of MPRA is to export the bibliographic metadata of the publications to the RePEc network.
The Open Library of Humanities is a non-profit open access publisher for the humanities and social sciences. It is not financed by charging publication costs (APCs), but by consortium payments from participating libraries and institutions worldwide. The University Library also participates in the OLH.
Do you have any questions?
Contact us by e-mail: open-access@ub.uni-muenchen.de