OLEcon offers the opportunity to support sustainable funding of scholarly diamond open access journals through a financial engagement in the consortium
A service of the ZBW
OLEcon journals are published in Diamond Open Access.
In order to ensure Open Access for the OLEcon journals in the long term, ZBW organises a funding consortium. You can support OLEcon with a financial commitment to the consortium.
ZBW organises the consortium. You can join or leave the consortium every year.
Do you have further questions? Have a look at our questions page to see if we already have an answer to your question. You can also contact us at any time via olecon@zbw.eu.
Participating institutions
The financing of Diamond Open Access is a desideratum. Stable funding is particularly important for science-led publications that appear independently of large commercial publishers. The OLEKonsort project aims to establish a stable and sustainable consortium for the collaborative funding of science-led Diamond Open Access journals in the economic sciences. With this project, the ZBW aims to promote the professionalization of consortium-based financing of science-led publications.
The consortium for the financing of an economics journal package is stabilized via several mechanisms. Firstly, the planned consortium will rely on the extensive participation of funding institutions. Secondly, as a reinforcing element, the project planning includes a concept for community development and management in order to bind the funding institutions closely to the consortium as a community of interest in the long term. Thirdly, the concept provides the involvement of the users of the journal package, e.g. the publishers or members of the editorial board. As stakeholders, they flank the communication of the ZBW and convey the relevance of the respective journals from the perspective of economic researchers. Fourthly, the ZBW is developing a monitoring system that can be used to measure the success of the consortium.
With your financial contribution to OLEcon you support non-commercial, free-of-charge Open Access. You contribute to more bibliodiversity and help reduce inequalities in the publishing system. Diamond Open Access means that access is no longer restricted to people who belong to a financially strong institution. With your support you have a share in realising one of the key demands of current science policy: to support non-commercial, scholar-led publication outlets and infrastructures.
Other advantages of consortial funding for open access include simple administration on the part of the institutions and relatively low costs. With the Open Library Economics ejournals package, the entire journal package is supported for one year with a contribution that, even in the highest tier, is still lower than an average APC for a single article in Gold Open Access journals.
Your contribution will be honoured quite directly: upon request your institution will be named as a supporter in the journals’ imprints and on the OLEcon website.
The ZBW manages the consortium and makes invoices to the supporters.
The financial contribution exclusively finances the OLEcon journals. Journals submit a cost budget during the OLEcon application procedure, from which results the amount of the required partial funding from the consortium. The ZBW bears the administrative costs of the consortium.
No, for two reasons. Firstly, the consortium is co-financed by BMFTR project funds in the years 2024-2026.The proportion of project funds decreasing each year. Secondly, the journal package is growing dynamically. Every year, new journals have the opportunity to apply for funding from OLEcon. With more journals in the package, the contribution to the co-financing of the consortium also increases.
Yes, this is generally possible. Contact us and we will be happy to send you the relevant lists by e-mail.
The costs for participation in the consortium vary depending on the size of the institution. The classification takes place in three so-called ‘tiers’, based on the number of FTEs of academic staff and students. The current annual contributions are announced at the beginning of each pledging round. They can also be found in the product data sheet, which can be downloaded from the website.
It is possible for you to be categorised outside the tiers. Please complete the relevant field in the participation form. If you have any questions, please contact us.
If you agree to participate via LAS:eR, the number of FTEs entered there will be accepted. If you only wish to participate with your department, please contact us and let us know the relevant FTEs.
The Open Library Economics journals can only be published sustainably in Diamond Open Access if sufficient supporters can be found to fund them. Only then will reading and publishing remain free of charge (no article fees).This is NOT a donation, but co-financing for Diamond Open Access.
A legal assessment of the budgetary categorisation of the co-financing of Open Access is currently being developed in the BMBF-funded ELADOAH project. Initial results have already been communicated in presentations (you can switch on englisch subtitles, the presentaion is held on german).
Support for non-commercial Diamond Open Access is currently supported by science policy. This is because free access to publishing and reading enables scientific exchange without access barriers.
It can often be an argument if researchers from your institution publish in journals in the OLEcon package or are active as part of the editorial board. We will be happy to send you a list of publications on request.
The Diamond Open Access model for journals does not include any costs for individual readers or authors. Nevertheless, there are of course costs for hosting, editing, website, etc. With Diamond Open Access, these costs are covered by alternative financing models.In the case of the Open Library Economics (OLEcon) journals, this is the consortial financing model. Such collaborative funding models for open access are already being successfully implemented in other subject areas – e.g. since ten years by the Open Library of the Humanities or by the KOALA model since 2021. Consortial funding is seen as particularly sustainable due to its distribution across several institutions, all of which make a small contribution.
In fact, with this type of joint funding, there is the issue of ‘free riding’, i.e. institutions that use the journals without contributing to the funding. However, due to the proven success of other OA consortia, this is not a cause for concern.
Last but not least, numerous science policy papers have been published in the last two years that emphasise the importance of Diamond Open Access models for the diversity of the publishing system and call for them to be supported (e.g. Action Plan for Diamond Open Access from Science Europe; Recommendations on the Transformation of academic Publishing).
