Olaf works at ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, which also acts as the German National Library for Economics.

His team mainly focuses on Open Access and Research Data Management. They provide discipline specific services for the research community in Economics and Business Studies. This includes the subject repository EconStor, the Open Library Economics to support Diamond Journals and the ZBW Journal Data Archive for the storage of publication related research data. The team is also part of national and international networks with relation to Open Science (e.g. COAR, RePEc, DINI, and the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany).

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.

Olaf is also a co-chair of the LIBER Open Access Working Group.