The open access publisher MDPI has announced the establishment of a fully transparent  Open Access agreement with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium (KEMÖ) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). Through this national agreement, the 15 Austrian institutions listed below as well as FWF will cover the Article Processing Charges (APC) of manuscripts published by eligible corresponding or funded authors in MDPI journals as long as central funds are available.

"The FWF is pleased to have concluded another transparent Open Access agreement with the publisher MDPI, together with 15 research institutions from Austria. The agreement is yet another important step in the direction of Open Access and supports the implementation of Plan S," stated the FWF.

All participating institutions have gained access to the MDPI online submission system where they can find full article metadata and pricing information as well as Funder and Grant ID details for easy identification and additional transparency. At the same time eligible authors are benefited from an APC discount which comes at no cost for the institutions.

Alistair Freeland (MDPI's Chief Operations Officer) and Nikoleta Kiapidou (MDPI’s Institutional Engagement Coordinator) said:  "We are very pleased to have extended the existing, individual agreements to a nationwide agreement thanks to the help of FWF and KEMÖ. We look forward to supporting institutions in Austria in transitioning towards Open Access.  We hope to continuously improve the administrative processing of APCs, as we strive to ensure that the handling of Open Access fees becomes more efficient and standardised."

Eligible corresponding authors affiliated with the participating institutions are prompted to choose the corresponding Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) when they submit an article via MDPI’s online submission system. The program will be selected automatically if authors submit their papers using their institutional email address. To claim their discount, FWF funded authors should choose the particular funder and add their Grant ID upon online submission of their manuscript. The institutions will then crosscheck the information and confirm the APC funding.

The Austrian institutions participating in this agreement are: Austrian Science Fund (FWF); University for Continuing Education Krems; University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna; University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria; University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien; Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences; International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA); Institute of Science and Technology Austria; MCI Management Center Innsbruck; University of Graz; University of Linz; University of Salzburg; Graz University of Technology; TU Wien; University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna; and University of Vienna.  

The full text of the agreement is openly available online at: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2536007

About MDPI:

MDPI is a pioneer in scholarly open access publishing that has supported academic communities though journals, conferences and other initiativessince since 1996. Based in Basel, Switzerland, MDPI has the mission to foster open scientific exchange in all forms, across all disciplines. Its 203 diverse, peer-reviewed, open access journals are supported by over 35,500 academic editors. MDPI serve scholars from around the world to ensure the latest research is freely available and all content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).