Open Access

Open Access stands for unrestricted and free online access to quality-controlled scientific information. By eliminating technical, financial, and legal barriers, Open Access contributes to the improvement of access to such publications and to establish the provision of quality-controlled scientific information as a basic prerequisite of excellence in research.

In its Open Access policy, the IRS affirms the aims and principles of Open Access and follows the recommendations of the Leibniz Association's “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities” and the “Leibniz Open-Access Policy 2016-2020”.

The IRS endeavours to publish  its research findings in accordance with the principle of Open Access. It does so most directly through publication in Open Access media and – where legally permitted – through parallel or subsequent provision of access to publications via document servers (repositories).

Republishing of journal articles in Open Access will be done primarily in EconStor, the repository managed by the ZBW – the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

Furthermore, the publications can be found via regular search engines and will also be available in LeibnizOpen (The repository of the Leibniz Association), in the Social Science Open Access Repository (SSOAR) as well as in several library catalogues.

The IRS supports Open Access publication by:

  • encouraging its researchers to provide for Open Access within the framework of their research projects' specific publication strategies;
  • allocating money in an IRS publication fund, available through the competition procedures, to proportionately finance the costs of Open Access publications;
  • providing support to its researchers in clarifying legal and financial queries connected to Open Access publication;
  •   supplying research publications for which free availability has been legally obtained in specialised, Open Access format document servers (repositories).

In addition, the IRS is engaged in the Leibniz Association's Open Access working group, represented by the contact person for Open Access at IRS, Simone Vogler.