As a signatory of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, the University of Vienna supports the call for free and unrestricted access to scholarly information on the Internet (Open Access). With this aim in view, the University of Vienna, in cooperation with national and international institutions, actively participates in discussions and negotiations relating to the transition to Open Access in academic publishing.

In addition to the systematic collection of research in its research information system (u:cris), the University of Vienna also wants to make research results more visible and accessible on its own electronic publication archive (u:scholar). Therefore the following guidelines apply:
 

Guidelines of the University of Vienna

• The University of Vienna expects all affiliated researchers to deposit a complete version of each publication in u:scholar, the University's institutional repository, and to make it freely accessible*, provided there are no legal impediments to doing so.
• The University of Vienna advises its researchers to increasingly publish their academic work in Open Access journals, provided that appropriate and suitable peer-reviewed journals are available, especially if they are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
• The University of Vienna encourages initiatives that result in journals edited at the University of Vienna being converted to Open Access. In the future, the launch of new journals will only be supported financially if they are published Open Access and have successfully passed an external evaluation.

Supporting measures

The University of Vienna provides its researchers with the infrastructure necessary for electronic publishing and archiving. Continuous development thereof ensures the perfect coordination of research documentation, institutional repository, international databases and subject repositories.

The University of Vienna is committed to assisting its researchers with publishing in Open Access journals both administratively and financially. The University of Vienna allocates no central funds for paying additional fees for articles in subscription journals ("hybrid Open Access") to be made Open Access** as long as there are no sustainable solutions to the issue of "double dipping".***

The Open Access Office of the University Library is open to all researchers and provides advice on and assistance with scholarly publishing or editing of Open Access journals. The University Library also offers support with legal issues, particularly concerning the clarification of rights for documents uploaded to the university's publication archive.