Publication costs

The University of Regensburg supports its academics in electronic publishing with numerous services. Under certain conditions, publication fees are also covered.

In order to make Regensburg's research results as visible as possible, the University participates in several publishing agreements which, in addition to read-only access, often also enable free or discounted open access. In addition to simpler communication, the advantage of publishing agreements is the centrally received and usually discounted invoices, which are checked by the specialised "Electronic Publishing" team for formal criteria and funding opportunities.

Irrespective of existing publishing agreements, publication fees in pure Open Access journals can be subsidised by the university's publication fund if the conditions below are met.

If you do not publish directly Open Access, please use the free secondary publication option ("self-archiving")!

The following requirements apply for a grant towards publication fees in pure (gold) OA journals as well as for the utilisation of publishing agreements:

1. Affiliation: A person associated with the University of Regensburg is labelled in the publication as (submitting or responsible) corresponding author and is responsible for paying the article processing charges. It must be evident in the work that the corresponding author's main work on this work was carried out at the University of Regensburg. In the case of affiliation with several scientific institutions, the main affiliation (the first affiliation), which indicates where the work was mainly produced, is decisive. Please always use the university e-mail address for clear assignment.
2. Publisher specifications: Specific information on the contract can be found under "Open Access agreements with publishers". Depending on the publisher, only certain years, certain article types and certain journals may be affected by the agreement. The publisher usually informs authorised authors, but the publisher's information on any "free publication" should be verified by consulting the "Electronics Publishing" team or via the information shown here. In some cases, libraries have to allocate the costs within the institution or charge them to the authors.
3. Procedure: Currently, no separate application is required for the utilisation of a publishing agreement or for the grant from the Publication Fund for articles in OA-only journals. The grant is awarded to every article that falls under the conditions mentioned here and for which the original invoice is sent to the UBR. The difference to the actual publication fee (incl. VAT) must be paid by the researchers. Researchers must promptly inform the University Library of the corresponding UR/UKR project/cost centre with which the University Library can settle the costs. There is no provision for cost splitting with other institutions. The article fee is paid by the University Library.
4. No coverage: Fees for Open Access articles in "hybrid journals" (subscription journals) that are not covered by the free OA option under the publishing agreements, as well as additional costs for e.g. colour charges, submission charges or page charges cannot be subsidised.
5. Additional requirements for a grant for publication fees in OA-only journals: (These grants are independent of an existing publishing agreement. The following conditions also apply to OA journals with which agreements exist, e.g. Springer-Nature and Wiley)
   • The articles to be published appear in journals whose articles are all accessible to users free of charge via the Internet immediately upon publication ("genuine open access journals") and apply strict quality assurance procedures recognised in the respective subject. To ensure this, only fees for articles in open access journals that are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) can be accepted. Please also refer to our information on quality assurance of scientific journals.
   • A grant of €2000 per article will be awarded in 2024/2025.
   • Goodwill rule: In order not to penalise researchers who cannot provide their own funds to pay publication fees, the entire publication fee can be covered upon application. Young researchers in particular often lack the funds to publish in renowned open access journals. This makes this possible at any time and the publication venue can be chosen without financial hurdles. The application must be submitted in writing to Department 5, Publication Services - Open Access of the University Library. If the University Library has not received an invoice or cancellation after 6 months, it will ask whether the application is still valid or whether it should be withdrawn (e.g. if the article is rejected). This is to prevent funds from being blocked unnecessarily.(Application form).

You would like to publish an article in a journal or have you already submitted an article to a journal and would now like to find out whether and to what extent the costs incurred can be subsidised? Simply send us the journal title by e-mail to

oa(at)ur.de (opens your email program)

and we will let you know the possibilities!

The agreements and journals are categorised as "Hybrid" and "(Gold-)OA".

Open Access journals ("Gold OA journals", "Fully OA journals", "Pure OA journals")
In Open Access journals, publications are freely accessible as soon as they appear and are provided with a licence (usually Creative Commons) for better reuse. The electronic publication of research results without access restrictions makes scientific information more visible, with the positive consequence that it is cited more frequently. The submission and quality assurance process (peer review) is similar to that of publishing in traditional journals. The costs incurred are often financed via author fees or article processing charges, which can be subsidised by the UR Publication Fund. Agreed discounts can be found under the tab "Open Access Agreements with Publishers", the requirements for a grant from the Publication Fund can be found under the tab "Conditions". In the Electronic Journals Library (EZB) (external link, opens in a new window), Gold OA journals can be recognised by the "indexed in DOAJ" button next to the green traffic light.

Hybrid journals
These are subscription journals that can only be read via a subscription (labelled in the EZB (external link, opens in a new window) with a red and/or yellow traffic light; you can only access the corresponding articles if your library has subscribed to the journal) and also offer a fee-based OA option for the individual articles. We do not pay these OA fees - or any other fees, e.g. page charges, colour charges, submission charges, etc. - in order to avoid paying for these articles or journals. -we do not pay these OA fees - or other fees such as page charges, colour charges, submission charges, etc. - so as not to finance these articles or journals twice. However, due to special agreements, a free OA option is possible with certain publishers. These agreements can be found here under the tab "Open Access agreements with publishers". Conditions for using this free option: The corresponding author is a member of the University of Regensburg and this is given as his/her affiliation and correspondence address in the article! In the case of affiliation with several scientific institutions, the first citation is decisive. The first author is not decisive. Publishers often also use the university e-mail or IP address of the university to verify authorisation.

Through existing publishing agreements, UR members have the opportunity to publish certain types of articles in certain journals open access free of charge or for a discounted fee. For the allocation of manuscripts to UR, please refer to the "Conditions" tab above.
Where publication is not free of charge, this also applies to articles from publishing agreements: Funding from the Publication Fund is possible for pure (in DOAJ-listed (external link, opens in a new window)) OA journals up to €2000 (in 2026) if the "Conditions" above are met. In most cases, the invoice is sent directly to the university library, which automatically checks for eligibility. Any remaining costs will be transferred to a cost centre of the corresponding author.
If you have any questions, you can contact us at any time!

Here is an overview of the contracts we have concluded with publishers and their conditions: Publisher agreements (external link, opens in a new window)

Background: The provision of scientific information is currently undergoing a process of transformation from subscription-based access to worldwide free access. In the Germany-wide "DEAL contract" with Wiley, Springer and Elsevier, publishers and libraries are therefore billed on a publication basis. Publication fees are charged for each article for which the corresponding author has selected the UR as the main place of origin and which is therefore assigned to the UR.
Previously, these publication fees were borne entirely by the University Library due to the transition from the subscription model to publication-based billing. The subsidy for publication fees in pure Open Access journals, on the other hand, has always been set at €2000.
However, in order not to penalise publishing in pure OA journals, the funding of other publication fees is to be equalised in future. Publication costs incurred in so-called "hybrid" journals (financed by subscriptions AND OA fees) will therefore also be subsidised with €2000 if they are incurred within the framework of publishing agreements. Specifically, this applies to publications with Wiley, Springer and Elsevier. The Library Affairs Committee has therefore decided to apply the publication-based billing of DEAL journals to the internal distribution of costs. For submissions from 1 September 2025, fees in excess of €2,000 will therefore be passed on to researchers. You can see the costs incurred in this table:

The tier allocation of the Wiley journals can be found in column M ("EUR PAR Fee") of the journal list (2200,- € = Tier 1; 2700,- € = Tier 2; 3150,- € = Tier 3).
The allocation of Elsevier articles to a year depends on the acceptance date. Elsevier CPTL includes journals from "Cell Press" and "The Lancet". These are labelled "CP/TL hybrid" in the "Bucket" column of the Elsevier journal list.

• Springer journal list
• Journal list Elsevier
• Journal list Wiley

Further information can be found below under "Open Access agreements with publishers"
Important: These publication fees are charged for every article assigned to us - regardless of OA! We therefore recommend that you continue to choose the Open Access option in any case, so that the articles are freely accessible and reusable for everyone! According to various studies, this results in significantly higher access and citation rates.
Procedure: After accepting the article in the publishing portal, the university library must confirm that the corresponding author is a member of the UR and that the article was actually written here, so that we can be invoiced for it. Prior to this, the OA team contacts the corresponding author with a request for a specific cost centre from which the author's share may be booked. The remaining costs will be rebooked in the weeks following publication.
Goodwill rule: Only if no own funds are actually available and it is an Open Access article can an application (external link, opens in a new window) be made to cover the full costs.
Note: The above changes do not apply to the pure ("full"/"Gold") OA journals (these are listed at https://doaj.org/ (external link, opens in a new window) ) from Springer, Wiley and Elsevier. The current subsidy of €2000 remains in place. The above changes also do not affect other publishing agreements (here the University Library pays a flat rate for reading access including the free OA option).
The above changes also do not affect the fee-based OA option outside of our publishing agreements. These are still not eligible. Instead, we recommend using the free secondary publication option. In most cases, the accepted author's version may be made available online. You can find more details on our information page on secondary publications.

The Publication Fund of the University of Regensburg finances previously unpublished Open Access monographs and edited volumes (first publications) up to a certain maximum funding amount (pro rata). The conditions for this are

• Author: Members of the UR who are responsible for paying the publication fees as authors (or editors in the case of edited volumes) are eligible to apply. In the case of several associated institutions, the main activity must take place at the UR and the work for this publication must have been carried out here. This must be clearly recognisable in the publication.
• Work: All components of the funded work must be permanently accessible to readers free of charge and worldwide immediately upon publication and must be reusable under a Creative Commons licence. Funding is available for scientific publications published under the Creative Commons licence CC-BY or CC-BY-SA. The Open Access version will be published at the same time as or before any parallel print version. The publication is clearly labelled as an Open Access publication on the publisher's website and in the print publication, is easy to find and can be cited via ISBN/DOI/URN. Adequate labelling includes free access and a free licence. The books must be subject to a professionally recognised quality assurance procedure. The quality criteria of the AG Universitätsverlage should be adhered to; certain points are mandatory. The publisher is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and/or lists its books in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) or on the OAPEN platform.
• Theses: Theses (including dissertations) are not funded. For these, we offer a cost-effective print and online publication option as part of UR Publishing Services.
• Costs: The costs must be listed transparently by the publisher. Only costs for open access publication - not for printing subsidies, colour charges etc. - can be covered. - can be covered. Funding commitments are valid for a period of 12 months. It is possible to combine funding with other funds from the University of Regensburg.

All funded monographs and edited volumes will be permanently archived in the University of Regensburg repository (external link, opens in a new window) and made accessible online.
You can use the oa-finder (external link, opens in a new window) to select suitable book publishers for your planned monograph.

Please contact the Open Access team (e-mail: oa(at)ur.de (opens your email program)) for details, the possibility of funding or if you have specific questions.

Scientific institutions and societies recommend the allocation of the free licence CC-BY (attribution) so that works can be redistributed and reused in the best possible way. The NC (Non-Commercial)/ND (No-Derivatives) modules, on the other hand, mostly help the publishers, not the authors!
The restriction to non-commercial or no-derivatives is not recommended in most cases, as more restrictively licensed works are generally less likely to be reused due to user uncertainty and may exclude many - even desirable - reuse options (e.g. use by non-profit organisations, private educational institutions, general practitioners, freelance members of the teaching staff, blogs, free knowledge databases, commercial databases), see also the FAQ on the advantages and disadvantages of the NC module (external link, opens in a new window).
At the same time, however, many publishing contracts (e.g. also with Springer, Wiley, Elsevier, at least in 2024) stipulate that if NC/ND licences are selected, all rights of use for adaptations or commercial use are transferred exclusively to the publisher! This offers publishers an additional opportunity to make money from their work without the authors themselves benefiting from it. In these cases, authors themselves must also obtain authorisation from the publisher if they wish to use their own works again for adaptations or commercial purposes. The NC module also does not protect against use by AI, as the transfer of rights to the publishers gives them the opportunity to sell on your data exclusively. If the works are freely available anyway, this option is not as profitable.
See also our information page on Creative Commons and https://deal-konsortium.de/warum-ccby. (external link, opens in a new window)

Note: The prices quoted by the publishers are always net prices to which 19% VAT must be added. According to the Value Added Tax Act, VAT must be paid in the country of use. Please therefore ask publishers based abroad to issue a net invoice and quote our VAT identification number (VAT ID) DE 233 549 072. When the invoice is paid, the university will then automatically pay the 19% VAT to the German authorities.

In accordance with the recommendations of the DFG, the German Council of Science and Humanities and the German Rectors' Conference, a letter from the President of the University of Regensburg, Prof. Hebel ("Payment of publication fees", email 18 Dec.2020 to all faculties with the request for forwarding), states that all publication fees of the UR and the UKR, regardless of the type (page charges, colour charges, open access publication costs or similar), must be directed centrally to the University Library from 2021 in order to uniformly record all fees for scientific literature supply including publication costs and thus obtain a better basis for negotiation with publishers.
We check every invoice to see whether we can subsidise it from central funds. This is the case for publications in pure Open Access journals if the above-mentioned conditions are met and funds are still available. Publication fees for articles in subscription-based journals, for example page/colour charges, cannot be financed centrally. In this case, we must forward the invoice to you.
In addition, from 1.1.2021, new requirements of the UR Administration will apply to incoming invoices of all kinds (see UniRegensburg circular mail of 17.11.2020 "Digitisation of invoice processing and instructions for electronic account assignment"). This stipulates that

• all invoices received electronically must also be assigned to an account electronically
• incoming invoices must be sent by the invoice issuer (i.e. the publisher!) as a PDF (not a download link) directly (for reasons of audit security, no emails with forwarded content can be accepted!) to rechnung@ur.de (this account is only for invoices, not for other enquiries!) (preferably with oa@ur.de in CC)
• the billing address must be specified: Universität Regensburg(oa(at)ur.de) Zentraler Rechnungseingang 93040 Regensburg
• our e-mail oa(at)ur.de must be stated on the invoice (for example as part of the invoice address or in the "Contact person" field) for the allocation of publication invoices in the account assignment system.

In order for an invoice to be issued without foreign VAT, you must - as before - enter the VAT ID of the UR (DE 233 549 072).

When selecting suitable journals for your manuscript, you should first consider which journals you are familiar with and in which good and thematically similar articles appear. There are also a number of platforms that can support you:

• DOAJ contains only pure, quality-checked OA journals. A listing in this database is a requirement for a publication grant at the UR (unless there is a corresponding publishing agreement so that the publication is actually free of charge). To search, enter the relevant keywords in the search field. Filter options: Subject, language, licence, publisher, place of publication, type of peer review, free publication.
• B!SON Journal Recommender recommends suitable DOAJ-listed journals after entering keywords/abstract.
• oa-finder shows suitable book publishers for planned monograph publications and suitable journals for planned article publications. Contains not only OA journals, but all journals in the Electronic Journals Library. With filter by subject, keywords, costs, OA type, publisher, language. Sortable by diamond/scholar-led/cost-free journals, APC level, CiteScore/SNIP/SJR (but not Journal Impact Factor). Including display of publication fees and whether cost coverage or free OA is possible due to the selected university! (Please note: cost coverage display is not always correct, e.g. for DEAL Gold journals).
• Manuscript Matcher from Web of Science helps you to find suitable journals for your topic (registration required).

You are then welcome to ask us whether the journals you have in mind can be subsidised or whether they are covered by publishing agreements. If you are not sure whether certain journals/publishers are reputable or should be categorised as "predatory publishers", please contact us with specific questions!

To check key figures:
As some journals provide self-calculated key figures ("predatory publishers"), we recommend that you check these on independent sites if necessary:

• SNIP
• CiteScore
• Scimago Journal & Country Rank: shows the SJR and H-Index of journals. Filter: e.g. by subject, whether OA, whether listed in Web of Science
• Web of Science: InCites Journal Citation Reports: shows the Journal Impact Factor of journals. This means that the IF provided by the journals themselves can also be checked. Filter: e.g. by subject and DOAJ listing. Access only in the campus network, via UB website: Database information system DBIS; Products: Journal Citation Reports

You are familiar with the Electronic Journals Library (EZB) (external link, opens in a new window) as a service for the effective use of scientific full-text journals on the Internet. The EZB has now been expanded to include additional functions that provide scientists with targeted support when publishing:

• Contact information: Get direct contact to the publication service of our institution as well as information on invoice processing.
• Publication costs: Find out the average publication costs actually paid for journals from OpenAPC.
• Funding opportunities: Find out about options for covering publication costs at the University of Regensburg.
• Journal categories: Filter journals based on the categories in the EZB such as Diamond Open Access, DOAJ seal or Data Journal.
• Information on publishing: Get journal-specific publishing details from the DOAJ, including information on:
  • Article Processing Charges
  • Link to Submission Guidelines
  • Time to publication
  • Information on the review process
  • Licence of the publications
  • Accepted languages
• Information on secondary publication: Use important information on making your previously published research results available free of charge.

Please also note the UR publication guidelines (opens in a new window). (This PDF is not accessible). This describes, among other things, how the UR is to be indicated as an affiliation in your publication.