<h1 class="ltx_title_section">Brief overview of German development towards Open Science &nbsp;<br></h1><div>In
 2003, the <a href="http://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration">Berlin Declaration </a>on Open Access to Knowledge in the 
Sciences and Humanities was signed by the main German research 
associations as well as the German Research Foundation <span>(<a href="http://www.dfg.de/en/dfg_profile/alliance/index.html">Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG, 2015a</a>)&nbsp;</span>and numerous international institutions.
 <br></div><div><span><p>Until now, more than 500 research organisations from around the world have signed the declaration (<a href="http://openaccess.mpg.de/319790/Signatories.">Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, 2015</a>), which highlights goals, a definition of an Open Access contribution and encourages to support the transmission to the electronic Open Access paradigm. <br></p><p>Open access publishing and research funding became more effective in 2006 when DFG implemented a set of guidelines for the publication of results from DFG-funded projects on an Open Access basis. From 2008 the institutions of the Alliance of German Science Organisations agreed to coordinate their activities more intensively and to bundle resources and expertise by building the Digital Information Initiative. It focuses on six priorities: German national licensing, Open Access, a national hosting strategy, primary research data, virtual research environments and legal frameworks for the provision of scientific information. DFG is supporting the introduction of an inalienable second publication right. It became a law in Germany in 2014 and initiates libraries to start projects that bring their institution publications online. <br></p></span><br></div><p><span>Another statement in 2013 is influencing the German research landscape: the European Commission (EC) launches a pilot on Open Research Data. In addition to the previous programme, Open Access to scientific publications is mandatory for all scientific publications resulting from Horizon 2020 (8</span><span>th </span><span>framework programme) funded projects (<a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-1257_en.htm.">European Commission, 2013</a>). </span><br></p><div><div><span><p><br></p><p>Research funding bodies, scientists, information infrastructure institutions complement the traditional research cycle and enhance typical computational workflows. The way researchers will publish, assess impact, communicate and collaborate will change within the next 20 years, as the book project "Opening Science" describes (Bartling &amp; Friesike, <cite class="ltx_cite" data-bib-key="2014" data-bib-text="@book{2014,
	doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-00026-8},
	url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00026-8},
	year = 2014,
	publisher = {Springer Science $\mathplus$ Business Media},
	editor = {Sönke Bartling and Sascha Friesike},
	title = {Opening Science}
}" contenteditable="false"><a href="#2014">2014</a></cite>). <br></p><p>These approaches are contextualised with the help of Library and Information Science. <br></p></span><br></div><p><br></p><br></div><div><br></div>