The funding of Verfassungsblog is essentially based on six pillars:

1. crowd funding via our membership model for university libraries and institutions;
2. cooperation with the Center for Global Constitutionalism at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL) in Heidelberg;
3. specific funding for blog symposia;
4. third-party funding of research projects;
5. advertisement in the weekly editorial and
6. donations.

In terms of editorial decisions, Verfassungsblog remains entirely independent.

Read more about the different pillars for funding Verfassungsblog on our Transparency page.

Membership

Verfassungsblog is transparent in its costs. It is not profit-oriented and its income is used to finance the operation of the platform. The wage costs for Verfassungsblog’s employees make up the majority of the budget. Verfassungsblog does not charge Article Processing Charges (APCs) in order to enable every author to publish regardless of their financial means (or those of their academic institution) and without administrative effort – only the quality of a contribution determines whether it is published.

University libraries make financial contributions to ensure that Verfassungsblog makes legal expertise available to researchers and the interested public in Germany, Europe and beyond without barriers to access. In this way, they support free academic discourse and help researchers at their institutions to gain visibility far beyond national borders. Institutions that contribute to the funding of Verfassungsblog also receive more visibility through the integration of their logo in the contributions of affiliated authors on the website. Supporting institutions are provided with the Verfassungsblatt, which compiles the articles published each month in a PDF. At our annual Contributors Board Meeting, we inform supporting institutions about what we have been working on in the previous year, about income and expenditure and which projects and publications we are planning. This exchange with libraries helps us improve our publications while institutions that contribute to the funding of Verfassungsblog can find out what their money is used for.

Institutions that commit to financially support Verfassungsblog are free to choose whether they pay the regular price (“full financing”) or participate in the form of “financing light I” or “financing light II”. The latter is particularly suitable for small library budgets and for institutions without a law faculty; “full fincancing” is particularly recommended for institutions with a law faculty. If you would like your institution to participate in funding Verfassungsblog or if you have any questions, please contact us at oa[at]verfassungsblog.de.

Costs per institution

• Full financing € 3,000
• Financing light I € 2,000
• Financing light II € 1,500

Financing Institutions

A total of 57 institutions currently support the Verfassungsblog with various membership contributions. 33 institutions are supported by the Lower Saxony Consortium, which is organized by the Göttingen State and University Library of Lower Saxony, and 16 institutions are supported by the Saxony Consortium, which is organized by the Saxon State and University Library in Dresden. A further eight institutions worldwide support the Verfassungsblog with an annual contribution.