ing.grid is proud to have been shortlisted for the first edition of the Enter Award, a prize for Open Access initiatives in Germany. With the nomination, ing.grid places itself among the 4 best initiatives in the category Infrastructure.

The Enter Award was presented for the first time in 2024 to promote free access to scientific publications and other materials on the internet. The award aims to foster an open and collaborative culture of education, research and learning in Germany. About 90 applications from various individuals and groups had been received, ranging from scientists, research institutions, libraries, museums, archives, repositories, advice centres, to publishers. The award was presented in five categories: Infrastructure, Skills Transfer, Young Hopefuls, Pioneering Achievement, and Cooperation.

As a platform for scientific exchange on all matters related to research data management in engineering sciences and beyond, ing.grid applied in the category Infrastructure. ing.grid was one of five applications to be nominated for the long list and was further nominated for the shortlist with three other excellent open access initiatives from Germany. We were happy to be invited to the award ceremony where the winners were announced. The prize in the category Infrastructure went to the project DeepGreen, a delivery service for Open Access articles.

Even though ing.grid did not ultimately receive the Enter Award 2024,  we consider the shortlist nomination itself a great success. We were able to achieve it thanks for the engagement of our editorial board and the reviewers as well as the authors who trusted ing.grid in its beginnings. Equally important was the work of the ing.grid management team and the support we have received from the University Library of Darmstadt and the TUjournals team who were the co-applicants for the award.

Meeting and connecting with other Open Access enthusiasts at the Enter Award ceremony was highly motivating. We were happy to see that many core aspects of ing.grid were addressed in the speeches: The importance of scholarly-led Diamond Open Access journals for the future development of Open Access was highlighted by jury members as well as by Prof. Dr. Heinz Pampel, professor for information management at the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, in an on-stage interview during the award ceremony. This is very encouraging for ing.grid to pursue its approach and act as a pioneer for the future development of Open Access publishing.

We congratulate the winners and our fellow nominees and are looking forward to meeting and connecting at future occasions!

Read more about the nominees and the winners under https://enter-award.irights-lab.de/

Title image: Kevin Logan and Michaela Leštáková representing ing.grid at the Enter Award ceremony in Berlin 

Title image credits: CC-BY-SA 4.0, Daniel Buss

open access enter award prize