The University Library has negotiated memberships and publishing agreements for the RUB that contain Open Access clauses.
Please always indicate your affiliation with the RUB directly in the submission process and, if possible, submit your funding application to the library prior to submission with the publisher so that we can safely verify the RUB affiliation in cooperation with the publisher.
You can find agreements for monographs here.
The following agreements and memberships for journals are currently in place:
In 2021-2025 Open Access publications in proceedings and journals of the ACM are, with a few exceptions, free of charge for RUB members.
https://libraries.acm.org/subscriptions-access/publications-eligible-for-oa
In 2024, OA publication costs in all of the publisher's journals are covered by a Publish & Read agreement.
Membership ended on 31.7.2020 - the publishing agreement was transferred to Springer Deal as of 1.8.2020.
OA publication costs (only research articles) in subscription journals of the Standard Collection (25 titles) are covered. RUB members receive a 15% discount on article fees (only research articles) in pure Open Access journals, as invoicing is done centrally.
OA publication costs in subscription and gold OA journals are free of charge for RUB authors. The costs for this transformation contract 2025-2027 are raised cooperatively at the RUB.
www.cambridge.org/core/services/open-access-policies/waivers-discounts
OA publication costs in the 3 hybrid journals "Development", "Journal of Cell Science", "Journal of Experimental Biology" as well as the 2 Gold OA journals "Disease Models & Mechanisms" and "Biology Open" are covered by the RUB contract.
The 2025 agreement includes centralised invoicing. Article costs of up to 2.000€ gross can be covered by the OA Publication Fund if the funding criteria are met.
(DEAL) From 2024 on articles fees in fully (Gold) Open Access journals are discounted by 20% and by 15% in fully OA journals of the Cell Press and the Lancet titles. They will be invoiced centrally to the University Library and must be reimbursed by the Corresponding Authors. A fee will also be charged for each article published by RUB members in hybrid journals. In 2024, these centrally billed costs will be covered jointly by central funds from the University Library, the DFG funds and by a share per faculty / UKRUB. The exact regulation for the year 2025 will be added shortly.
The agreement from 2025 includes only 10% discount on article fees and centralized billing.
In 86 hybrid journals in the humanities and social sciences and in 23 hybrid journals in the field of economics, OA publishing is initially possible for RUB authors at no additional cost. The articles must be approved by the UB in the de Gruyter dashboard. The transformation contract also allows for a 20% discount on article fees in Gold open access journals.
The contract from 2024-2026 allows RUB members immediate open access publication in all transformative PsyJournals journals at no additional cost. There is a 25% discount on APCs in Gold OA journals. Author FAQ
In 2025, RUB members can continue to publish Open Access without restriction in 53 hybrid and 23 Gold OA journals as part of the national consortium IOP Journals. The contract is financed cooperatively; there are no additional costs for authors (except page charges, if applicable). AAS and ECS Publications are excluded.
https://publishingsupport.iopscience.iop.org/questions/open-access-germany-tib/
The agreement enables centralised invoicing and a 30% discount on APCs for RUB members.
In 2025, OA publication costs in all the publisher's journals (gold and hybrid) are covered by a new Publish & Read contract.
There are no article fees for open access articles in Nature subscription journals - these are covered by the new Publish & Read contract 2025-28, cooperatively funded by the University Library and several faculties.
Per the membership agreement, all article fees are covered by the membership fee.
Agreement on central invoicing
RUB members receive a discount for opting for immediate publication as open access. All articles in PNAS are freely accessible via PubMed Central after 6 months.
OA publication costs in the 3 hybrid journals "Journal of Cell Biology (JCB)", "Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM)" and "Journal of General Physiology (JGP)" are covered by the RUB contract.
Article fees for Open Access articles in hybrid and gold journals of the RSC are covered by the new Publish & Read contract in 2024-2027.
In 2025, OA publication costs in the Royal Society of London's 8 hybrid and 2 gold OA journals are covered by a Publish & Read contract.
The consortium agreement allows RUB members a 15% discount when selecting RUB as affiliation in the billing process. For further information check: Author's Workflow.
(DEAL) Article fees in fully (Gold) Open Access journals of the SpringerOpen and BioMed Central brands are discounted by 20%. They will be invoiced centrally to the University Library and must be reimbursed by the Corresponding Authors. From 2024, a fee will also be charged for each article published by RUB members in hybrid journals. In 2024, these centrally billed costs will be covered jointly from central funds of the University Library, from DFG funds and by a share per faculty / UKRUB. The exact regulation for the year 2025 will be added shortly.
In 2025, there will be no costs for Open Access articles in nearly all hybrid Taylor & Francis journals (excluding Dove, PeerJ, and Expert Medicine titles). These are covered by the new Publish and Read contract 2024-2027, which is co-financed by the University Library and many faculties. A discount of 15% is granted for articles in Gold Open Access journals.
(DEAL) Article fees in fully (Gold) Open Access journals are discounted by 20%. They will be invoiced centrally to the University Library and must be reimbursed by the Corresponding Authors. From 2024, a fee will also be charged for each article published by RUB members in hybrid journals. In 2024, these centrally billed costs will be covered jointly from central funds of the University Library, from DFG funds and by a share per faculty / UKRUB. The exact regulation for the year 2025 will be added shortly.
The University Library takes part in various projects to provide joint financial support for open access book publications. Selected new publications from various publishers are financed collectively by several libraries as part of a consortium. The authors involved do not incur any additional costs for the open access publication of their book.
Within the framework of the initiative, the titles per package are selected by the participating libraries.
You can find more information here.
The Open Libraries of transcript are quality-controlled open access collections.
The Medienwissenschaft collection contains selected new publications from the fields of media, film and communication studies. The Politikwissenschaft collection contains all new publications from the Political Science programme area.
In addition to the transformation of several journals in the KOALA Sozialwissenschaften package, the project enables the open access publication of the series "Bewegtbilder" and "Yearbook of Moving Image Studies". You can learn more about the project here.
Copyright © oa 2025
Last update: Apr 08, 2025
