Experts from scientific research, scientific organisations, libraries and museums, the education and innovation sector, scientific publishers, management, and copyright lawyers were involved in the process.

Scientific information generated within the framework of publicly funded research is to be made accessible and usable for any user via the Internet without financial, legal or technical barriers. Open access should include not only quality-assured (i. e. peer-reviewed) text publications but also other digital objects such as research data. There are a variety of approaches to implementation, such as making a previously published article accessible via the internet on university document server, or direct publication from a digital open access medium. It is also planned that scientific authors whose research was financed by at least 50 per cent public funding be able to make their research publications available to the general public on the internet after
a period of twelve months.

For more information:
http://www.bmbf.de/