Open Access to Scientific Knowledge

The Edition Open Access (EOA) platform was established in 2010 by Department I to bring together publication initiatives seeking to disseminate the results of scholarly work in formats that combine traditional publications with innovate methods opened up by the digital medium. In 2020, the platform was migrated to the Institute’s library, where an even stronger focus will be placed on the digital dissemination of publications and datasets.

The publications on this platform are freely available according to the principles of open access. They offer unrestricted access to research results that have been obtained with public funding and thus increase the scientific impact of the authors.

A Creative Commons licensing model is used to safeguard the interests of authors in defining their own rights of use and in gaining wider dissemination of their research results. 

The portal currently hosts open-access initiatives by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, the Chinese Academy of Science as well as the Ca' Foscari University of Venice. It is open to hosting other open access initiatives similar in conception and spirit, in accordance with the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. 

The publications are aimed at scholars and students of various disciplines, as well as at a broader public interested in how science and the humanities shapes our world.