Funding Acknowledgements
What are funding acknowledgements?
Funding acknowledgements identify academic publications that have been made possible by third-party funds. Unlike informal acknowledgements, they are official funding statements that are indexed in bibliographic databases such as Web of Science.
They are important because they:
- demonstrate the eligibility of research for funding,
- support the reputation management of researchers and institutions,
- are used to monitor publication costs at Freie Universität.
To ensure that funding is correctly attributed, funding acknowledgements must always be combined with clear affiliation details.
Types of Funding Acknowledgements
- Research Funding Acknowledgements: Refer to the project and funding contexts in which the research was conducted.
- Publication Funding Acknowledgements: Refer to the funding of the publication itself, e.g. through the publication fund.
Important: Always adhere to the guidelines of the relevant funding organisation. This is the only way to ensure that information is processed correctly in databases
For publications supported by the Open Access publication fund of the University Library of Freie Universität Berlin, please use the following statements:
For journal articles
- German: Gefördert aus Open-Access-Mitteln der Freien Universität Berlin.
- English: Supported by the open access fund of Freie Universität Berlin.
For monographs and edited volumes
- German: Die Publikation wurde ermöglicht durch eine Ko-Finanzierung für Open-Access-Bücher der Freien Universität Berlin.
- English: This publication was financed in part by the open access fund for books of Freie Universität Berlin.
Note: The university name must not be translated or abbreviated!
For all projects funded by the European Union, a correct funding acknowledgement is mandatory. The requirement applies not only to scientific publications, but also to all forms of dissemination and communication relating to the project, as well as to infrastructures, equipment and results developed within the framework of the funding.
- Every publication must include a standardised statement acknowledging EU funding.
- The exact wording depends on the extent of the funding:
- For full EU funding: Funded by the European Union.
- For partial EU funding: Co-funded by the European Union.
- In addition to statement, the EU emblem must be displayed.
- The EU provides official templates on its website, which should be used in publications.
Important
- The acknowledgement must be placed prominently in the publication.
- Only with the correct wording and the EU emblem will the funding be documented in accordance with the requirements.
- This also ensures traceability and visibility of EU funding in scientific reporting.
Publications resulting from DFG-funded research must include a standardised funding acknowledgement. It ensures that the funding is documented transparently and recorded correctly in international publication databases.
- Every publication based on a DFG project must contain a funding acknowledgement.
- The funding acknowledgment always comprises a standardised text in German or English:
- German: Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – [project number(s)]
- English: Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – [project number(s)]
The project number is mandatory and must be appended to the acknowledgement text with a hyphen. If a publication results from several DFG projects, all project numbers must be listed, separated by semicolons. You can find the project number in the DFG’s letter of approval for the project or, alternatively, in the DFG project database GEPRIS.
For publications in the institutional repository Refubium, please provide the funding institution, project context, and grant number. Appropriate metadata fields are available for this purpose. The submitted document itself should also include the funding acknowledgement.
Do you have questions about the use of funding acknowledgements? Please feel free to contact the Open Access Team at the University Library: open-access@fu-berlin.de.