Olaf works at ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, which also acts as the German National Library for Economics. He and his team mainly focus on Open Access and Research Data Management. They have established close connections to the German Economics Research Community, which helps them to understand the author’s point of view with respect to the publishing process. They are also part of several national and international networks with relation to Open Access (eg. Science Europe, COAR, RePEc and the Alliance of German Research Organisations).

Notably, his team has advised its research organization, the Leibniz Assocation, in the development of an overall Open Access Policy. See the policy.

Open Access is a global topic – not just for science policy, but more and more also for all research communities. Research Institutions (including their libraries) must build alliances and work together on an international scale to move forward on the practical level, to negotiate with publishers and to implement an Open Access routine on every campus. Learning from each other and establishing best practices is another important reason why I’m part of this working group.