DFG – German Research Foundation

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is the central self-governing research funding organisation in Germany. The DFG funds research projects, creates competitive opportunities and conducts procedures for the review, evaluation, selection and decision of research proposals. It helps shape the overall conditions and standards of academic research.

Though it is not compulsory, DFG’s funding guidelines include a request to publish open access (see DFG form 2.00 – 1/23, ch. 13.2): “The results of projects financed by DFG funding should be made available to the public. […] The recipients of DFG grants are hereby requested to publish their project results for the purpose of scholarly communication in open access.”

The DFG collection at OAPEN Library initially contains all books that have received funding from the “Open Access Publication Funding” programme (starting with publications from 2022). The programme provides funds at institutional level and grants a fixed allowance for the publication of research results via open access. Only open access books that result from research projects funded by DFG may receive this allowance. Furthermore, the collection also contains further books and book chapters that result from research projects funded by DFG and that contain funding acknowledgements.