Publication Fund for Articles & Book Chapters

Need to pay publication fees for your Open Access article in a journal or your Open Access book chapter? Apply for funding from the University of Bonn’s publication fund!

The University of Bonn’s Publication Fund helps cover the costs associated with publishing an article in a journal or a book chapter as Open Access. The fund is managed by the Bonn University and State Library¹ (ULB Bonn).

Application for Articles ²

Application for Book Chapters ³

Important Note

The money available is limited and funding is not guaranteed. You may inquire at any time to check if funds are still available. The funding covers publication costs for publishers without a separate agreement⁴ with the University of Bonn.

Eligibility for Funding

Who is eligible for funding?

The fund is open to members of the University of Bonn or the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) who are the corresponding author and indicate their primary affiliation. Students and early-career researchers are especially encouraged to apply. Authors of funded articles are responsible for communicating with the respective publisher.

What is eligible for funding?

As a member of the University of Bonn, you can apply for funding for Open Access publications that follow recognized quality assurance processes like peer review. The journal must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ⁵) or the Journal Citation Reports (JCR⁶).

What is not eligible?

Funding is not available for non-research articles, mirror journals, secondary fees (e.g., submission charges, page charges, color charges), opt-out articles, contributions in edited volumes or conference proceedings with other funding sources, and double funding (preprints).

Funding Criteria

Funding Amount

The maximum funding amount from the Publication Fund is currently 2,000 € per publication.

The 2,000 € funding limit does not refer to the invoice total from the publisher, but to the total publication costs actually recorded by the University – including VAT, currency fluctuations, or subsequent charges. Since many publisher invoices do not include VAT or are issued in foreign currencies, the recorded amount may be higher than the original invoice amount.

This also applies to invoices that indicate 0% VAT, due to regulations regarding foreign invoices and the use of a VAT identification number⁷. In such cases, the publisher issues a net invoice without VAT, and the VAT is then paid by the recipient – i.e., the University of Bonn – and is included in the final recorded cost.

In practical terms: Even if the publisher's invoice shows, for example, only 1,980 €, the actual recorded costs (e.g., due to exchange rates or taxes) may exceed 2,000 €. In such cases, the University and State Library will only cover up to 2,000 €, and your institute will need to cover the remaining amount.

Payment process

The University and State Library will handle the processing of your publisher’s invoice and will initially cover the costs in advance. The costs are settled via the WBS element⁸ (German: PSP-Element) of the Publication Fund.

For the potential invoicing of any remaining amount over 2,000 € (total publication costs, not the invoice total), we require the following information:

From University members: a WBS element⁹ and the contact details of a representative.
From University Hospital (UKB) members: only an invoice address and the contact details of a representative.

Please note that the University of Bonn cannot guarantee that the entire invoicing and reimbursement process will be completed quickly and on time (e.g., in cases involving third-party funding).

Reservation Period

We reserve the amount for 3 months. If you do not receive an invoice by then, please contact us, and we will extend the reservation for another 3 months. In case of delays or rejections, please notify us in time, as we may release the funds otherwise.

Funding Acknowledgment

Publications funded by the Publication Fund must include the following statement:
"This work was supported by the Open Access Publication Fund of the University of Bonn." Further information on affiliations and funding conditions can be found in the University of Bonn’s guidelines¹⁰.

Rights & Licenses

Journal articles must be published under one of the two Creative Commons licenses (CC BY or CC BY-ND). Licenses with an NC component are not eligible for funding!

Book chapter contributions must be published under a Creative Commons license.

For more information on Creative Commons licenses, please click here¹¹.

Secondary Publication

Articles and book chapters funded by the Publication Fund must also be published in the university repository bonndoc¹² after the initial publication.

How to Apply for Funding?

Invoice Guidelines

Please forward these requirements to the publisher to avoid subsequent invoice corrections.

Invoice Address

The invoice must include the following billing address without exception:

Universität Bonn
Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn
Zeitschriftenmanagement / Open-Access-Team
Regina-Pacis-Weg 3
53113 Bonn

The billing address must not include any reference to your institute or department.

License specification

Applies to journal articles only, not to book chapter contributions:
The CC license under which the publication appears must be indicated on the publisher's invoice.
(Please note: We only provide funding for publications under CC BY or CC BY-ND licenses.)

Payment Due Date

The payment term must be at least 30 days!

Due to administrative procedures, it often takes at least 30 days for the university’s finance department to process an invoice. Please inform the publisher accordingly and check the payment term stated on the invoice. Only forward the invoice to us once the payment term is correct.

Tax Information

For invoices issued within Germany: gross invoice including the applicable VAT rate and the VAT amount.

For invoices issued from abroad (EU countries and third countries): net invoice including the VAT ID of the University of Bonn (VAT ID: DE 122119125) as well as the VAT ID of the publisher.