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Open Access Monograph Fund

• Requirements for funding
• Eligible publications
• Procedure for assumption of costs and application
• Author discounts for open access publications

Requirements for funding

• A maximum of €5,000 gross per publication will be funded. Any costs exceeding this amount must be covered by the applicant.
• Only monographs resulting from a DFG-funded project are eligible for funding
• You are a member of Heidelberg University (according to LHG §9 Abs. 1) and as author/editor responsible for the payment of publication fees.
• Each funded publication must contain both a reference to the financial support of the publication costs and, if applicable, a reference to the externally funded project from which it originated.
• Only the additional costs for open access publication will be subsidized. Costs for publishing services, which are also incurred for a book publication without OA release, are not eligible for funding. A cost estimate from the publisher (or comparable information) should be provided that transparently shows the OA share of the costs.
• If offered by the publisher, authors should make use of the option to link to their ORCID.

Eligible publications

• Only first publications, i.e. previously unpublished works, are supported. Subsequent open access publication of books that have already appeared in print cannot be funded. Also, funding for new editions is excluded by default. In exceptional cases, if extensive revisions have been made and scientific demand justifies making the work openly accessible, exceptions may be made after a case-by-case review.
• Eligible publications are those published by recognized publishers. These are in particular, but not exclusively, publishers that are members of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association or listed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). In particular, these include university open access publishers such as Heidelberg University Publishing (heiUP).
• Monographs, dissertations, postdoctoral theses, and textbooks are eligible. Edited works or anthologies are eligible if at least one editor belongs to Heidelberg University.
• As a rule, conference proceedings are not funded. The funding of collections with selected, particularly important or outstanding conference contributions for the purpose of longer-term preservation of results and further dissemination is possible.
• In the case of commemorative publications, there must be a recognizable connection to Heidelberg University, e.g. Heidelberg editors or a Heidelberg jubilarian.

Procedure for assumption of costs and application

• Please send an informal e-mail to monographiefonds@ub.uni-heidelberg.de
• and provide the following information: publisher; title of the book; authors/editors; type of publication (dissertation, anthology, etc.); amount of the open access fee according to the publisher's cost estimate, DFG - project number.
• In the cost estimate, the publisher must transparently present the services that are associated with the payment of fees.
• Applications for funding should be submitted as soon as a publisher's commitment and/or a cost estimate from the selected publisher is available. A funding commitment on our part is valid for 12 months. If the publication has not taken place within this period, a new application must be submitted. Please contact us at an early stage to find out about the prospect of funding.

Author discounts for open access publications

Independently of cost support from the Publication Fund, authors at the university can receive discounts on open access publications from various publishers. For more information, please see our overview page on open access discounts.