The fee must have been settled by Freie Universität or a Freie Universität member. The invoice must be assignable unequivocally to a corresponding oder submitting author at Freie Universität.

Yes. However, the author's Freie Universität address has to be given as official address – either exclusively or in combination with another address.

The relevant question is only whether the publishing journal is a "genuine" open-access journal. As a rule, such a journal will be listed on http://www.doaj.org/. It is of no importance through which additional websites the article is channeled.

Even if journals have not (yet) been registered with the DOAJ, publication fees can be covered through the publication fund. In all cases, journals must be genuine open-access journals, and according to the regulations, they must have strict quality-assurance procedures in place.

That is correct. The regulations exclude funding in that case.

No. That is impossible: Once payment has been made through an external-funds account, reimbursement to a regular-budget account is excluded.

Application for reimbursement of the publication fee: Funding through the publication fund is possible, on condition that there is no provision for publication costs in the project budget.

The critical factor is the invoice date. Funding is allowed only for fees invoiced during the current financial year. Please make sure that all invoices of 2022 are submitted to us by the end of January 2023. Applications which are submitted after 31st of January can not be considered for funding.

The financial year 2023 starts on 1st February 2023.

No, a reimbursement for publication fees can be only made on your department account
Please see Funding conditions.