“We need to talk about incentives and disincentives - for researchers as well as for publishers,” was a key statement made by Dr. Benedikt Schmal, a postdoctoral researcher at the Economic Theory Group at TU Ilmenau, at two academic conferences in September at which he appeared as a speaker.
At the 'Open Access Days' at TH Cologne UTAS, he was part of a fishbowl discussion about “How does the DEAL influence the German publishing landscape?”. The ZB MED - Information Centre for Life Sciences organized the event. The target group consisted of leading librarians and open access officers from academic libraries. The fishbowl format allows interested listeners to join and leave the discussion flexibly. Other fixed participants were Miriam von Maydell (Verlag Barbara Budrich), Veronika Spinka (Thieme Verlag), and Gunther Eysenbach (JMIR Publications/U Victoria, CA); the debate was moderated by Petra Labriga (ZB MED). The ZB MED is the national infrastructure and research center for life science data and information in Germany.
At the annual conference of the Verein für Socialpolitik, the German economics association, Benedikt Schmal presented his research project “The X Factor: Open Access, New Journals, and Incumbent Competitors” and participated as a panelist in a high-profile discussion on “The Open Access Transformation in Economics”. Other panelists were Marianne Saam (Uni HH & ZBW), Juliane Finger (ZBW), Hanna Hottenrott (ZEW & TUM), and Klaus M. Schmidt (LMU Munich). The panel was organized by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. This is a research-based information infrastructure for economics and a member of the Leibniz Association. The ZBW holds the world's largest collection of economic literature.