Upcoming changes to the terms and conditions of the Open Access Fund

The Open Access Fund will see changes to its terms and conditions from 2024.

Over the ten years of successful support for open publishing at Brno University of Technology (more than 350 articles have been supported!), the terms of the Open Access Fund have been continuously changed to provide the best possible support while avoiding practices that unfortunately still persist in scholarly publishing.

Currently, two changes have been proposed, which should apply from 2024:

  • Restriction of MDPI support
    The MDPI publishing house has been facing a controversial reputation, the quality of the peer review process or the high number of articles published (especially in the so-called Special Issues) has been debated. The issue is described e.g. on the website https://predatory-publishing.com/is-mdpi-a-predatory-publisher/. For this reason, it will not be possible to support articles from MDPI Publishing through the Open Access Fund. If you want to publish here, you have to fund the article e.g. from project funds.
  • Integration of the principles of the BUT Ethical Code
    It will now become part of the affidavit that the article has been produced in accordance with the BUT Ethical Code. This is in particular Article 5, which focuses on the ethics of scientific and research activities. By signing the affidavit, the head of the institute or unit confirms that the article complies with all these important aspects.
Both changes should appear in the planned update of Decision 22/2021. Currently, the Open Access Fund is fully exhausted, and we will start accepting applications for support from the new year for articles accepted from 1 December 2023. All information about the Fund, including guidelines and a list of supported articles, can be found at https://www.vut.cz/en/uk/openaccess/fund.
Published
Short URL https://www.vut.cz/en/rad/openscience/f129950/d248042

Share

Responsibility: Bc. Jan Skůpa