Open Science

PRIF shares the goal of making research results financed from public funds available to the public freely and without barriers. Both scientific texts and research data can and should (where legally and ethically possible) be made freely accessible in the interest of open science.

Open science thus creates transparency, traceability, accessibility and reusability of research results and practices. Central dimensions of Open Science are Open Access and Open & Fair Research Data.

[Translate to Englisch:]

Open Access

Open Access describes the goal of making research knowledge accessible in digital form at any time and without financial, technical or legal barriers via the internet. The PRIF library supports and advises researchers on open access publications.

Through transformation agreements with various publishers and an open access publication fund, PRIF enables its researchers to publish a large proportion of peer-reviewed journal articles and other publications directly open access.

The library also offers a secondary publication service to make publications freely accessible after the legal embargo periods have expired (“green route”).

According to its constitution the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) seeks to introduce the “findings of peace and conflict research to the public and in particular seeks to bring them into effect in political education”. Following this mission, PRIF supports the open access of scientific research results online. 

The objective of open access is to digitally provide access to research knowledge at any given time online without financial, technical and legal barriers. Thereby, increasing the visibility and public utilization of research results. As a member of the Leibniz Association, PRIF adheres to the “Guidelines on Open Access in the Leibniz Association” and the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities”. 

PRIF encourages and supports its academic staff with the publication of research results according to the open access principle:

  • The publication of research results can ensue directly as an open access initial release (“the golden route”) or as a secondary release (“the green route”).
  • PRIF's publications formats [with the exception of HSFK-Studien] are freely accessible through the PRIF website as well as the Social Science Open Access Repository (SSOAR) of GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. The publications are placed under a corresponding free user's license (Creative Commons-License).
  • For scientific works, that are not directly published in an Open Access format, PRIF advises its staff to verify and complement the publishing contract as well as to publish a subsequent secondary release within an institutional repository as SSOAR.
  • Within the scope of its abilities PRIF provides its academic staff with the financial infrastructure for open access publications.
  • Scientific knowledge is often based on the analysis of scientific data. In order to verify and reproduce their own research results PRIF supports its scientist by ensuring the availability of their research data on respective digital platforms. 

PRIF's Open Access Policy is decided by the Executive Board as well as the Research Council and is evaluated and revised regularly.

PRIF’s own publications (with the ex­ception of the PRIF studies) are published open access: The publi­cations are ac­ces­sible via the PRIF website and the Social Science Open Access Repository (SSOAR)  of the GESIS Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences.

The Leibniz Association supports the free exchange of research results without of research results without access barriers. On their website, the Leibniz Association provides in­formation on the Leibniz Association’s open access policy and strategies.
 

Open Data

The publication of research data serves to review and quality control research results. This can help to answer new questions that were not considered during data collection.

PRIF has adopted a guideline for handling research data and supports scientists in research data management. Together with the Methods and Data Protection Officers, the library acts as a point of contact for individual researchers when implementing the guideline.