• The ‘submitting author’ or ‘corresponding author’ must be clearly affiliated with the Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg. In the case of multiple authorship, the majority of the scientific work must have been carried out at the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg. The author’s affiliation with the Technical University must be listed first in the publication. Furthermore, the Publication Guidelines must be observed. 
• The article is published in a Gold OA journal, in which all articles are made freely available immediately upon publication under a Creative Commons licence free of charge upon publication. The preferred licence is CC-BY 4.0. When submitting a proposal to the Publication Fund, the licence must be specified in advance for information purposes. Information on licensing can be found in a UB blog post.
• Funding is not granted for subscription-based journals with a hybrid model. Also excluded are so-called mirror journals, which are merely counterparts to an established hybrid journal. The journal must be listed in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) and must apply a recognised quality assurance procedure. If this is not the case (e.g. for new journals that have not yet been indexed), appropriate quality criteria must be met and the publisher must be a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). Please note: Some journals published by MDPI have been removed from the DOAJ (e.g. Minerals, materials, Polymers, Water, …). This de-indexing affects the option to cover publication costs from this publication fund.
• The total cost per article (including 19% VAT) is a maximum of €2,500 per article (net: €2,100). PLEASE NOTE: For invoices relating to international transactions, the invoice amount is a net amount; accordingly, 19% VAT must be added to the net amount. Higher invoice amounts will not be covered, not even in instalments. The only exception: Publications arising from DFG research projects are funded on a pro rata basis up to €2,500, provided that sufficient third party funds are not available. Only in these cases is it possible to split the invoice. Under certain circumstances, price negotiations with publishers may be possible; we are happy to assist with this. For publications arising from third-party-funded projects, authors are obliged to settle the publication costs from any available third-party funding. Additional costs for expedited processing, excess length or similar will not be covered.
• Funding approval is always subject to the availability of funds at the time of invoicing. In principle, therefore, authors should generally be prepared to bear the costs themselves if necessary.
• To ensure a transparent overview of funded articles, these may be uploaded to and archived on the document server Qucosa by the University Library.
• The TU Bergakademie Freiberg will participate in the Open APC Project. The aim is to ensure that the costs of open-access publishing are made available in a transparent manner. To this end, we will submit the gross APCs paid and the DOIs of the publications funded by the fund once a year. By submitting a publication, you declare, on behalf of all authors, your consent to this disclosure.

1. A formal preliminary assessment of the request to determine whether an open-access publication can be funded via the publication fund is possible but not mandatory.
2. Once the article has been accepted for publication, you can submit it via our notification form via our

   notification form . We will check whether the requirements are met.
   Please note: from February 2025, this will no longer be an application but a notification. We will only send you a re-registration if there are any outstanding issues or if funding is refused.

3. Please inform the publisher of the correct billing address where necessary.
   This change is not necessary for Elsevier, MDPI, Springer Nature or Wiley.
   
   Billing address:
   TU Bergakademie Freiberg
   “Georgius Agricola” University Library
   Order code 300100
   Winklerstraße 3
   09599 Freiberg/Saxony.

   From 1 July 2025, invoices must also be sent electronically to this central email address: Rechnungseingang [at] tu-freiberg [dot] de (Rechnungseingang[at]tu-freiberg[dot]de)

The invoice must contain all the necessary mandatory details (see Information Sheet D4 / Intranet) and, in addition, the following details:

• Title and authors of the article
• Publisher and journal
• For invoices from abroad (other EU countries and third countries): Net invoice stating the VAT number of the Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg (VAT number: DE 141136178)

The University Library manages the Open Access Publication Fund and also provides advice on all other matters relating to Open Access.

This initiative is co-funded by tax revenue in accordance with the Finance approved by the Saxon State Parliament.