In the engineering sciences, publications appear in a broad and diverse range of publication media. In addition to the academic journals that have been increasingly used in recent years, other outlets are relevant including international conference proceedings – providing these are quality-assured – and patents. These three forms of publishing are considered to be of equal value in the engineering sciences. Work is also published in business-related journals, especially at the interface with industrial research.

In order not to jeopardise a patent application, a certain period of time is allowed to pass before publishing patent-related results. Open access publishing is not yet widely implemented since there are only a few open access journals in the field of engineering sciences that offer sufficient quality assurance. Manuscripts may be posted on publication repositories such as arXiv.org(externer Link) – sometimes prior to publication as a preprint, sometimes after publication with a waiting period of one year – so as to enable broader access to results.

Example of a publication repository

arXiv(externer Link)

The decision to publishPossible reasons for restricting the publication of research results(interner Link)