The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF) has formulated its Open Access goals in its own strategy. It explicitly promotes the establishment of Open Access as a standard in science, supporting both the golden and the green road. Similar to the DFG, the publication of research results in Open Access is favored, but not mandatory.

However, the Ministry is somewhat more specific when it comes to funding individual research projects from its funds. Again, the publication in an Open Access journal is not obligate - however, if a publication was first published in closed access, self archiving, i. e. green open access, is mandatory, after the embargo period has expired.

In order to facilitate the initial publication in Open Access, it is possible to apply for open access publication costs simultaneously. This ensures that the publication costs are covered for the entire duration of the project. Fore research results that are published after the funding phase has ended, a post-grand-fund is available. Here, open access publication costs of up to 2000 € can be applied for, for articles presenting results that were produced as part of a completed BMBF project. Note that the project may not have been completed more than three years previously.

In addition to funding publication costs as part of individual research projects, the BMBF also supports structured funding projects that are genuinely conceptualized to establish and expand open access publication structures.