The Pro OAR DE project, running from September 2023 to August 2026, has dedicated the past two years to collaborating with German Open Access (OA) repository managers and and the global Open Science community to professionalize repository infrastructure. On October 30th, 2025, following a series of six networking forums, we hosted a pivotal session marking the culmination of these efforts.

Das Projekt OA Datenpraxis verfolgt das Ziel, die Open-Access-Transformation in Deutschland voranzubringen, indem der Umgang mit Publikations- und Kostendaten untersucht und unterstützt wird. Das Projektteam hat nun Informations- und Lernmaterialien zu Monitoringaktivitäten mit offenen Datenquellen veröffentlicht.

We are pleased to announce the publication of our fourth guide from the BMFTR-funded (Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space) project “Professionalisierung der Open-Access-Repositorien-Infrastruktur in Deutschland (Pro OAR DE)”: “Publikations- und Kostenmonitoring: Handlungsfeld für institutionelle Open-Access Repositorien” (available in German only). Matthias, L., Pampel, H., Khamis, C. O., & Rothfritz, L. (2025).

On November 6 2025, we participated in the Workshop “Resilience in Times of Crisis: Strengthening Open Science Against Geopolitical Pressures” at the CWTS in Leiden. The workshop made reference to the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (UNESCO 2021), which presented an extensive and inclusive vision for Open Science when they were published in 2021.

We are pleased to announce the publication of our third guide from the BMFTR-funded (Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space) project “Professionalisierung der Open-Access-Repositorien-Infrastruktur in Deutschland (Pro OAR DE)”: “Zweitveröffentlichung: Handlungsfeld für institutionelle Open-Access-Repositorien” (available in German only). Matthias, L. Pampel, H., Khamis, C. O. &

Am 19. September 2025 führten die DFG-geförderten Projekte OA Datenpraxis, openCost und Transform2Open gemeinsam den Workshop „Praktiken und Infrastrukturen des Open-Access-Monitorings“ auf den Open-Access-Tagen 2025 durch (Pampel et al. 2025). Nach einer kurzen Vorstellung der beteiligten Projekte diskutierten mehr als 30 Teilnehmende aktuelle Fragestellungen des Open-Access-Monitorings im Format World Café.

The Infra Wiss Blogs project by the Research Group Information Management was represented at this year’s Open Access Days with the workshop “Scholarly blogs as an integral part of the open access landscape”. The workshop was organised by Catharina Ochsner and Heinz Pampel (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (HU Berlin), Berlin School of Library and Information Science (IBI) in collaboration with Björn Gebert (Mittelalterblog &

I recently returned from a research stay at the University of Ottawa: A grant by the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) - through the BUA Fellowship Program of the Objective 3 - Advancing Research Quality and Value - allowed me to visit Stefanie Haustein, associate professor at the School of Information Studies at the University of Ottawa and co-director of the Scholarly Communications Lab.

We are pleased to announce that the event series “Quo vadis Open Research in Berlin and Brandenburg” will continue throughout 2025 and 2026. This marks the fifth round of the series, bringing together experts and practitioners to discuss the future of Open Science in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. An overview of all events and participating organizations can be found on the official event website.

I am pleased to share that our research group is a partner of the “Berlin – City of Open Knowledge for Academia, Administration, Civil Society & Culture” conference. The conference will take place on October 23, 2025, from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM, as part of the international Open Access Week 2025. This event will bring together experts, practitioners, and engaged citizens to explore the future of open knowledge-sharing in Berlin.

Last week, I was interviewed on the program Breitband on Deutschlandfunk Kultur about the ruling of a Belgian court against four shadow libraries, as well as the Open Library of the Internet Archive (Krempl, 2025). The broadcast is now available online. Enjoy listening! Further information about the research group can be found on our official website.