Leibniz institutes turn to Open Access journal publishing

Cologne, 22 February 2013 – The Leibniz Association recently organised a workshop in Berlin on the topic of Open Access. The goal of the workshop was to provide information on journal publishing to Leibniz institutes interested in this topic and to encourage people to share their experiences. The two-day workshop was jointly organised by the German National Library of Medicine (ZB MED), the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW) and Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Centre for Informatics, all of which are already involved in successful projects promoting the publication of open access journals.

The ZB MED, which is itself a member of the Leibniz Association, has been running its medical publication portal German Medical Science (gms) for the last 10 years. As an online portal for journals, conference proceedings and research reports, gms provides open access to high-ranking and quality-reviewed specialist medical texts. The ZB MED – Germany's national specialist library in the fields of medicine, health, nutrition, the environment and agriculture – has accumulated a wealth of experience in recent years as the operator of gms, and it was able to pass this information on to other Leibniz institutes during the Leibniz workshop. More than 40 participants attended the workshop which was entitled “Successful Journal Management: Tapping into the Potential of Open Access” (“Erfolgreiches Journal-Management: Potentiale durch Open Access”).

The participants confirmed that an increasing number of Leibniz institutes are choosing to release publications under Open Access guidelines. A total of 39 Open Access journals are currently published by various institutes of the Leibniz Association. Both the Leibniz Association and the ZB MED are enthusiastic supporters of this open exchange of research results. They believe that the fast and direct nature of Open Access increases research efficiency, supports international and interdisciplinary cooperation, boosts visibility and citation rates and maximises the benefits of publicly funded research.

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