Open Access at Leibniz University Hannover

Leibniz University Hannover supports the scientific-political request for open access to knowledge in the sciences and humanities, as determined in the ‘Berlin Declaration’, issued October 2003. In the spirit of this declaration, the Open Access Policy was passed by the committee and the senate in February 2011. The Open Access Policy was updated in 2022.

Open access monitoring was introduced at the Leibniz University Hannover to support a transparent, open and sustainable redesign of the scientific publication system and to make efforts towards open access quantifiable and verifiable.

Data basis

The data for the Open Access Monitoring of Leibniz University Hannover are collected based on the Research Information System (FIS), which serves as the university bibliography. The following evaluations are based on the data available in the FIS as of spring 2024.

Open Access share at LUH

46% Open Access

within LUH publications from the years 2019-2023 in FIS

Open Access share of LUH publications from 2019-2023

46% of publications affiliated with Leibniz Universität Hannover, published between 2019 and 2023, are Open Access. 41% of LUH publications are not Open Access. The remaining 13% are publications that have not (yet) been assigned.

Publication types considered in the evaluation

Publication types Percentage of publications from 2019-2023
Journal Article 59,9 %
Conference Contribution 17,6 %
Contribution to Book/Anthology 14,3 %
Monograph 3,3 %
Conference Article in Journal 3,1 %
Review Article in Journal 1,7 %

For the evaluation of the Open Access share of LUH publications from the years 2019 to 2023, certain publication types were considered. In addition to Journal Articles that are typically evaluated, some more publication types were included that are considered relevant in the context of the Open Access Transformation. Out of the total number of publications considered in the evaluation, 59.9% correspond to the publication type of Journal Articles, 17.6% are Conference Contributions, 14.3% are Contributions to Books or Anthologies, 3.3% are Monographs, 3.1% are Conference Articles in Journals, and 1.7% are Review Articles in Journals.

Open Access share of publications

21,79% Gold and 23,84% Hybrid

Open Access share of LUH publications in the year 2023

The graph on the right shows the temporal development of the shares of the different types of Open Access in the analyzed LUH publications (see table above) from 2019 to 2023.

It is clearly visible that both the share of Gold Open Access and the share of Hybrid Open Access have increased significantly from 2019 to 2023. While the share of Gold publications increased from 15.72% in 2019 to 21.79% in 2023, the share of Hybrid publications has almost quintupled. 2023 is also the first year in which there were more hybrid than gold publications at LUH. Overall, there has been a positive development towards Open Access at the LUH.

Open Access color shares of LUH publications per year

Explanation of the Open Access colors

The color coding used in FIS to distinguish different types of Open Access is based on the definition by Unpaywall:

  • Green articles are published in subscription-based journals but archived in an open-access repository or archive. These archives can be discipline-specific (such as ArXiv) or institutional archives operated by universities or other institutions. Green articles can be published versions or preprints and may have any license or no license.
  • Bronze articles are freely readable on the publisher's website without a license specified. There may be a delay between publication and access, and articles can often be removed by the publisher.
  • Hybrid articles are freely accessible at the time of publication and have an open license. These are usually published against an article processing charge (APC).
  • Gold articles have all the features of hybrid articles but are published in purely open access journals, which are called "Gold Journals" or simply "Open Access Journals.

Open Access share per publikation type

64,62%

Open Access share of journal articles in 2023

Open Access percentages of the considered publication types per year

The evaluation on the left shows the level of Open Access percentages within different publication types per year.

At an average of 91%, the highest Open Access percentage is to be noted in the publication type of Conference Articles in Journals. For Articles in Journals, a significant increase from around 47% in 2019 to around 65% in 2023 can be seen. The Open Access percentage for Conference Contributions has also remained constant over the years at an average of 30%. The Open Access share of Contributions to Books or Anthologies, as well as Monographs, has risen from around 14% to 23%. In summary, while there is a trend towards Open Access, there is also still a lot of potential for improvement. It should be noted however that publication data from the previous year has most likely not yet been fully added into the FIS at this point in time.