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Open Access at ISTA

Open Access topics:


To underline this basic principle, ISTA adopted and published its Open Access Policy February 15, 2014.
ISTA encourages its researchers to publish in Open Access journals and repositories. In order to support researchers with Open Access publications, we have compiled information on the ISTA Open Access Fund, Publisher Agreements, Funding Agencies, the Journal Checker Tool and self archiving on this page.

If you would like to go deeper into the Open Access topic, you can read about further reasons to go Open Access, the difference between Green and Gold Open Access or how to identify questionable Open Access journals:
Open Access in a nutshell

If there is anything you want to know about Open Access, but couldn´t find on these webpages, feel free to contact the ISTA Library.


On this site:

ISTA OA Fund

To foster Gold Open Access at ISTA, an Open Access Publishing Fund is available.

In order to be eligible for support, a publication has to be

  • created by an author affiliated to ISTA,
  • published in a Gold Open Access journal listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals,
    • including a central payment agreement with Gold Open Access publisher Frontiers, MDPI and Biomed Central
  • already accepted for publication at the time of application for funding support,
  • the fund can only be applied if no other grant is available.

This Open Access Publishing Fund covers 50% of the charge.

Further information on the respective publishers can be found in the Publisher Agreements.

From 2024 onwards, the procedure is as follows:

  • Please forward the APC invoice to the library team instead of sending it to invoice.
  • The library team will check if the article is eligible for funding.
  • Then the library team will initiate the payment, splitting it correctly between the research group cost center and the ISTA OA fund.
  • In case of a Gold Open Access central payment agreement, the library receives a central invoice, pays it in advance, and contacts the research group.
  • If the APC invoice is paid beforehand by credit card, please send it to the library team as well including a short note. The library will then inform you about the correct cost center
  • In case you need further details please contact the library team.

In case you need further details please contact the library team.


Publisher Agreements


Under certain circumstances the Open Access funding of your publication is provided by funding agencies like the FWF or the ISTA Open Access Fund.


Gold Open Access publisher agreements


Offsetting Hybrid publisher agreements

To avoid double dipping (charging both authors and subscibers for OA publishing) ISTA also signed several publisher agreements, which allow us to discount your article processing charges. In addition, the subscription costs will be reduced in the following year.


Read and publish agreements

In addition, ISTA Library negotiates agreements with publishers to enable Open Access publishing in Hybrid and Gold journals without additional cost for authors at ISTA. Some publishers grant a discount on APC’s for publications in a Gold Open Access Journal.


Funding Agencies on OA


cOAlition S Journal Checker Tool (JCT)

The Journal Checker Tool is designed to help authors publish in a Plan S compliant manner. By entering the journal, cOAlition S funding agency and institution, the tool displays those options available to authors to publish their publications Plan S compliant Open Access. You can also find more information about the tool here: https://www.coalition-s.org/blog/4-things-you-should-know-about-the-rrs-and-the-jct/


Self archiving at ISTA

An institutional repository is a digital long-term archiving system that offers members of research institutions and universities the opportunity to systematically record the results of their work, archive them permanently and make them available to the public free of charge and for an unlimited period of time.

ISTA also offers the possibility to archive all publications and published research data in our repository ISTA Research Explorer.



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