Wir wollen mehr Open Access wagen! Wege, Modelle und Services für die Politikwissenschaft Der Online-Workshop "Wir wollen mehr Open Access wagen! Wege, Modelle und Services für die Politikwissenschaft" findet am 9. Februar 2022 von 10:00 bis 14:30 Uhr statt. Veranstaltet wird er im Rahmen des BMBF-geförderten Projekts open-access.network gemeinsam vom Open-Access-Büro Berlin und dem Fachinformationsdienst Politikwissenschaft - Pollux . Ob Aufsatz, Buchpublikation oder die Veröffentlichung einer Dissertation - die Möglichkeiten im Open Access zu publizieren sind so breit aufgestellt wie die Politikwissenschaft selbst. Der Workshop soll darüber informieren, welche Möglichkeiten es gibt, die eigenen Publikationen in den Open Access zu überführen bzw. diese barriere-, kostenfrei und rechtssicher online zur Verfügung zu stellen. Was bedeutet es, ob als Professor*in oder Nachwuchswissenschaftler*in, im Open Access zu publizieren? Welche Beispiele und Angebote bieten Orientierungspunkte? Welche Bedarfe, Vorbehalte und Wünsche der Unterstützung gibt es? Gemeinsam blicken wir auf die Wege des Publizierens, die Chancen, aber auch die Herausforderungen des Publikationsprozesses. In zwei thematischen Blöcken möchten wir eine Möglichkeit zum Austausch für Wissenschaftler*innen und wissenschaftlich Publizierende in der Politikwissenschaft bieten. Jun.-Prof. Arndt Leininger , Ph.D. (Politikwissenschaftliche Forschungsmethoden, TU Chemnitz) und Dr. Philipp Schulz (Institut für Interkulturelle und Internationale Studien der Universität Bremen) gewähren Einblicke in Ihre Erfahrungen mit dem Thema Open Access. Praktische Umsetzbarkeit und Unterstützungsangebote werden vorgestellt sowie die Gelegenheit zum Netzwerkaufbau geboten. Um Anmeldung über unten stehendes Anmeldeformular wird gebeten. Zielgruppe Der Workshop richtet sich an Wissenschaftler*innen und Publizierende der Politikwissenschaft. Vorerfahrungen im Bereich Open Access sind nicht erforderlich. Agenda 9:45-10:00 Ankommen 10:00-10:20 Begrüßung & Warm-Up 10:20-10:30 Einführende Impulse 10:30-11:10 Open Access - Erfahrungsberichte (Jun.-Prof. Arndt Leininger, Ph.D., TU Chemnitz & Dr. Philipp Schulz, Uni Bremen) 11:10-11:40 Peer-to-Peer-Austausch 11:40-12:00 Alles was Recht ist (Dipl.-Wirt.Jur. Thomas Hartmann, LL.M., FIZ Karlsruhe) 12:00-12:10 Bewegte Pause mit Noemi 12:10-13:00 Pause 13:00-13:45 Open-Access-Publizieren - Wo & Wie? (Dr. Agathe Gebert, SSOAR & Stefanie Hanneken, transcript Open Library PoWi & Dr. Kurt Salentin, IJCV) 13:45-14:15 Ask the expert - Publikationswege 14:15-14:30 Wrap-Up & Feedback Veranstaltungsort Die Veranstaltung wird online in Zoom (bereitgestellt durch die Universität Bremen) stattfinden. Die Zugangsdaten erhalten Sie kurz vor der Veranstaltung via Email. Mit Ihrer Anmeldung stimmen Sie den Nutzungsbestimmungen von Zoom zu. Anmeldung geschlossen. Beiträge Impulse open-access.network & Einführung in Open Access (Linda Martin, open-access.network) Fachinformationsdienst Politikwissenschaft - Pollux (Regina Pfeifenberger, Pollux) Alles was (Urheber-)Recht ist (Dipl.-Wirt.Jur. Thomas Hartmann, LL.M., FIZ Karlsruhe) Publizieren Publizieren mit SSOAR (Dr. Agathe Gebert, SSOAR) Publizieren in der transcript Open Library Politik (Stefanie Hanneken, transcript) International Journal of Conflict & Violence (Dr. Kurt Salentin, Universität Bielefeld) Organisation Fachinformationsdienst Politikwissenschaft - Pollux Projekt open-access.network Open-Access-Büro Berlin...
What is Open Access? Find an introduction here. Source: based on Brinken, H. (2021). 10 Gründe für Open Access. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4643859 ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access: Pros and Cons Find an introduction here. Open Access Publishing and Self-Archiving Find an introduction here. Open Access in Political Science Political science is characterised by overlaps with other disciplines, for example sociology , history , law and administrative science , and philosophy . Depending on the sub-discipline, it is influenced by developments in the culture of neighbouring disciplines and adopts their methods. Whereas the humanities-oriented fields of political science, such as political theory, continue to have a strong affinity for book publishing, and open access has therefore not yet become very firmly established there, a more dynamic development towards open access can be observed in the sub-disciplines with a social science and international focus, where journal articles are the dominant form of distribution of research results. The American Political Science Association (APSA) , which is the most important political science association in the world, has been operating APSA Preprints , an open access publication platform for political science preprints, since 2019. In 2024, the largest political science association in Germany, the German Political Science Association (GPSA) , published a statement on open access and open science (in German), in which it underscored the importance of diamond open access in cooperation with independent publishers or non-profit-oriented research infrastructures as an important prerequisite for the success of the open access transformation. Of the major German-language political science journals, the Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft and the Politische Vierteljahresschrift , for example, are available for the most part in open access (to date only as hybrid journals ) as part of the DEAL agreement with Springer Nature. Other key German-language political science journals, such as the Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen and the Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen , have also been published only as hybrid open access to date – that is, they offer authors the option of "buying the freedom" of individual articles (i.e., making them open access) by paying an article processing charge (APC) . A special role is played by the think tanks in the area of application-oriented political science. Think tanks are public or private institutions that analyse foreign policy processes. They focus mainly on concrete options for action for policy makers, while also aiming to influence the political public at large. Many current publications from the leading think tanks, such as Clingendael in the Netherlands, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the Center for Applied Policy Research in Germany, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden, are for the most part freely accessible, albeit not completely open access. They are well publicised and can be downloaded easily from the respective websites. On the other hand, the problem with this type of grey literature is its findability at the usual search venues and the long-term digital availability of its content. Open Access Journals As of April 2024, the Directory of Open Access Journals listed 644 indexed journals under the keyword “ political science” . Purely open access journals (i.e., all articles are available in open access) of relevance to political science are: Africa Spectrum doaj Central European Journal of International & Security Studies doaj Health and Human Rights doaj (Gebühren werden nur in Rechnung gestellt, wenn diese durch die Einrichtung der Autorin oder des Autors übernommen werden können) Journal of Deliberative Democracy doaj Journal of Political Ecology doaj Leviathan. Berliner Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft Neue Politische Literatur. Berichte aus Geschichts- und Politikwissenschaft Open Gender Journal doaj Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft doaj Perspectives on Terrorism doaj Political Philosophy Redescritptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory Revue Internationale de Politique de Développement doaj Totalitarianism and Democrary. An International Journal for the Study of Dictatorship and Liberty (Totalitarismus und Demokratie. Zeitschrift für internationale Diktatur- und Freiheitsforschung) Zeitschrift diskurs ZRex – Zeitschrift für Rechtsextremismusforschung doaj Global Studies Quarterly doaj Policy and Society doaj Political Research Exchange doaj Research & Politics doaj In most cases, new journals from the major international academic publishers appear in open access. Because they have been in existence for only a short time, these young journals have been able to build up only low or average bibliometric indices, compared with the established core journals in this field. Among the 10 political science journals with the highest Journal Impact Factors in 2022, according to the Journal Citation Report (JCR), there are no purely open access journals. Of relevance in this context is the development of alternative metrics ( altmetrics ), which are also critically discussed in political science (Meibauer et al., 2024). New open access journals often occupy regional niches or are in new sub-disciplines and therefore have a more limited scope per se. The situation of German-language political science journals should be viewed independently of this. The fact that the internal market for German-language journals is small, increases the economic risk of open access transformations or start-ups for the publishers operating there – unless there is institutional funding (as, for example, in the case of Africa Spectrum or of Totalitarismus und Demokratie , where the transformation to open access is supported by the Specialized Information Service for Political Science – Pollux). Some of these journals (e.g., Perspectives on Terrorism ) have been able to establish themselves beside renowned journals from international scholarly publishers. In addition, in the area of journals, optional article-level open access in hybrid journals is increasingly being availed of across disciplines through the publish & read licences (e.g., DEAL). This relates also to internationally important publishers for political science, such as Sage und Taylor & Francis. In the Web of Science, the share of gold open access among the political science articles published between 2020 and 2023 was almost one third, and the trend is rising. The increasing share of open access among journal articles is also apparent in a study by Breuning and Aykol (2024), who also showed that having research funding at one's disposal is decisive for the question of whether or not works can be published in open What are Open Access Journals? Find an introduction here. Practical Tip Publishing Open Access: How to evaluate a journal's quality Video on the Funding of Open Access Articles Source: Becklas Dorow, C., Hauss, J. (2026). Funding Open Access Articles – What Are the Options?. Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/73596 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) What are Open Access Books? Find an introduction here. open-access.network (2026) ( CC BY 4.0 International ) Open Access Books As of August 2024, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) listed 3,033 titles under the search term " political science ", and the OAPEN Library listed around 8,602 titles under the search term "political science" . In the case of political science monographs and edited volumes, open access is becoming increasingly widespread. At Taylor & Francis/Routledge, for example, the share of open access books in the section “Politics & International Relations” recently stood at just over 8%. At Springer Nature/Palgrave, a sample of titles in the collection "Political Science and International Studies" for the most recent publication years yielded an open access share of 9.4%. At Nomos Publishing, one of the leading academic publishers for political science in the German-speaking area, the share of open access works among new political science titles between 2020 and May 2024 was 12.6%. By now, all major publishers (including German publishers) offer an open access option, with the result that, at the publishers of relevance to political science, more and more books are available in open access. The publication costs are financed (possibly pro rata) from project funding and through institutional sources such as publication funds or crowdfunding, as is the case with the transcript Open Library Politikwissenschaft , which is supported by the Specialized Information Service Political Science – Pollux (Hanneken et al., 2020). Disciplinary Repositories Important repositories include: SSOAR - Social Science Open Access Repository : The largest full-text server for the social sciences, SSOAR is operated by GESIS Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften . SSRN – Social Science Research Network : a preprint server with research publications from the social and life sciences, the humanities, and economics and business studies. The PSN (Political Science Network) in SSRN holds over 240,000 papers by around 190,000 authors. SocArXiv : This social science document server holds working papers, preprints, and self-archived published papers. APSA Preprints : the political science preprint server of the American Political Science Association (APSA) . An overview of relevant repositories is provided by the Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) . What are Repositories? Find an introduction here. Legal Aspects Find an introduction here. Video über das Zeitveröffentlichungsrecht Quelle: Brehm, E. (2021). Zweitveröffentlichungsrecht für Wissenschaftler*innen, open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/51789 ( CC BY 3.0 DE ) Practical Tip Finding Open Access Literature (in German) Open Access Helpdesk You are welcome to contact our Helpdesk of you have any questions about Open Access. oa.finder The oa.finder shows you from tens of thousands of journals which are Gold Open Access, whether they charge APCs and how high these are. You can also view the funding modalities of your own institution. Other Offerings The online archives JSTOR and Project MUSE now also provide open access content relevant to political science. Open Science in Political Science The visibility of and access to political science research data will gain in importance in future, for example, for the secondary analysis of research results or for meta-analyses. Two social science research data repositories, one of which covers quantitative methods and the other qualitative methods, shall be mentioned here: Archiving BASIS : a social science and economics research data repository for quantitative primary and secondary data Qualidata Network : a search portal for qualitative social science research data open-access.network ( CC BY 4.0 International ) References Breuning, M., Akyol, S. (2024). Who publishes open access? PS: Political Science & Politics . https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096524000106 Hanneken, S., Jobmann, A. & Schönfelder, N. (2020). Die transcript OPEN Library Politikwissenschaften – Ein Modell für Open-Access-eBooks in den Geistes- & Sozialwissenschaften. Informationspraxis , 6 (2). https://doi.org/10.11588/ip.2020.1.66637 Meibauer, G., Phull, K., Alejandro, A., & Ciflikli, G. (2024). Alternative metrics, traditional problems? Assessing gender dynamics in the altmetrics of political science. European Political Science , 23 (2), 179–198. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-023-00431-y Further Reading Czolkoß-Hettwer, M. (2025). Zwischen Hoffnung und Ernüchterung: Open Access in der Politikwissenschaft. DVPW Blog (Deutsche Vereinigung für Politikwissenschaft). https://www.dvpw.de/blog/zwischen-hoffnung-und-ernuechterung-open-access-in-der-politikwissenschaft-ein-beitrag-von-michael-czolkoss-hettwer Czolkoß-Hettwer, M., Lein, P. & Mayr, P. (2024). Probleme und Potenziale der Forschungsinfrastrukturförderung in Deutschland am Beispiel des Fachinformationsdienstes Politikwissenschaft. Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft , 34 (1), 101–122. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41358-024-00371-z König, T. (2020). Converting to Open Access. The Austrian Journal of Political Science (OZP) as a case study. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft , 49 (3), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.15203/ozp.3184.vol49iss3 Papillon, M., O’Neill, B., Bourque, M., Marland, A. & White, G. (2019). Open access and academic journals in Canada: A political science perspective. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue Canadienne de Science Politique , 52 (4), 903–922. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423919000799 Taubert, N., Sterzik, L. & Bruns, A. (2024). Mapping the German Diamond Open Access journal landscape. Minerva , 62 (2), 193–227. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-023-09519-7 Vauteck, B. (2008). Open Access als alternative Publikationsform für die deutsche Politikwissenschaft. Argumente und Strategien (Berliner Handreichungen zur Bibliotheks- und Informationswissenschaft; 232 ). https://doi.org/10.18452/18209 Content editors of this page: Michael Czolkoß-Hettwer und Regina Pfeifenberger, Specialized Information Service Political Science (FID Pollux) (Last updated: October 2025)....
