KEMÖ (Kooperation E-Medien Österreich, “E-Media Cooperation Austria”) is Austria’s national academic library consortium. It coordinates the shared licensing of electronic journals, databases, and e-books on behalf of member libraries and, since the mid-2010s, has taken on a second and increasingly central role: negotiating national open-access agreements with major scholarly publishers on behalf of its members. For researchers and research administrators working with Austrian institutions, KEMÖ is the body that determines which publishers offer centrally funded, no-fee open-access publishing to Austrian-affiliated authors, and on what terms.
What Is KEMÖ?
KEMÖ was founded in 2005 (it marked its twentieth anniversary in 2025) as a cooperative body for Austrian libraries and research institutions to jointly license electronic resources rather than negotiate individually with each vendor. It is operationally hosted by the Austrian Library Network and Service Ltd (OBVSG), which provides its business office and staff.
Membership is open to Austrian university libraries, universities of applied sciences, private universities, the Austrian National Library, state libraries, and other non-profit research, education, and archival institutions, including teaching hospitals. Reported membership figures have grown over time and are generally in the range of roughly 60 to 70 institutions as of the mid-2020s — treat any single number as a snapshot, since consortium membership changes year to year, and consult kemoe.at directly for a current list.
KEMÖ is comparable in function to other national or regional academic library consortia that negotiate collectively on behalf of member institutions — see CASRAI’s guide to Projekt DEAL, Germany’s national publish-and-read consortium, for a structurally similar model at a larger scale.
From Licensing to Open Access
KEMÖ’s original mandate was the coordinated acquisition and administration of licensed e-resources — the traditional “big deal” subscription-consortium role that many national library consortia have played since the 1990s and 2000s. Over the past decade, KEMÖ has explicitly extended that mandate to the active promotion of open access “in Austria and worldwide,” and now negotiates open-access components directly into its publisher agreements rather than treating OA as a separate track.
In practice this means KEMÖ agreements increasingly follow the transformative-agreement model used across Europe: a single national contract bundles reading access to a publisher’s subscription content with publishing rights that let corresponding authors at member institutions publish open access without paying an individual article processing charge (APC) out of pocket. See CASRAI’s guide to how read-and-publish transformative agreements work and the dictionary entry on the transformative agreement for the general mechanics this model relies on.
KEMÖ has negotiated agreements with open-access components covering a substantial share of the major international scholarly publishers Austrian researchers publish with, including Springer, SAGE, Wiley, Elsevier, De Gruyter, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis, and MDPI, among others, with terms (full read-and-publish, publish-only, or discounted APC) varying by publisher and by which member institutions have opted in. Current agreement terms and participating institutions for each publisher are maintained on KEMÖ’s own open-access pages, since individual deal terms are renegotiated on their own schedules and can change.
The KEMÖ–FWF–MDPI Agreement
One of KEMÖ’s most visible recent agreements is a joint open-access arrangement with MDPI negotiated together with the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Austria’s principal national research funding agency. The original agreement dates to 2019; KEMÖ and MDPI announced a renewal extending the partnership through the end of 2027. Under the current arrangement, 23 Austrian institutions and their affiliated researchers have access to MDPI’s Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) across more than 480 MDPI journals, with participating institutions covering APCs for eligible corresponding or funded authors from central funds where available.
Participating institutions reported as part of this agreement include the FWF itself, the University of Vienna, TU Wien, University of Graz, University of Linz, University of Salzburg, Graz University of Technology, the Medical University of Vienna, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU), the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, MCI Management Center Innsbruck, and several universities of applied sciences (Krems, BFI Vienna, Upper Austria, Technikum Wien, and Vorarlberg), among others. Institutions and researchers should confirm current eligibility directly with their own library or with KEMÖ, since which institutions have opted into a centrally funded APC waiver can change as agreement terms are renewed.
This is a useful reference case for anyone comparing how national consortia structure APC-based agreements: rather than a single publisher-wide read-and-publish deal like Projekt DEAL’s Springer Nature or Wiley agreements, the KEMÖ–FWF–MDPI arrangement is closer to a coordinated institutional-membership discount and central-fund model, layered on top of MDPI’s existing IOAP structure. See the dictionary entry on the article processing charge (APC) and the guide to how APCs work in open-access publishing for the underlying fee mechanics.
How This Affects Researchers at Austrian Institutions
For a researcher affiliated with a KEMÖ member institution, the practical effect of these agreements is usually one of the following, depending on the specific publisher and agreement:
- No APC due at submission — the institution’s central fund or the national agreement covers the fee automatically once eligibility (usually corresponding authorship plus institutional affiliation) is confirmed during submission or acceptance.
- A discounted APC — some agreements reduce rather than fully waive the fee, with the balance still payable by the author, grant, or department.
- Reading access without a publishing component — for publishers where KEMÖ has only negotiated subscription/reading terms, standard APC rules still apply if the author wants to publish open access with that publisher.
Because eligibility rules (which author role qualifies, which article types are covered, whether funding caps or annual quotas apply) vary by publisher and are renegotiated periodically, researchers should check with their institutional library — not assume blanket coverage — before submitting a manuscript if central OA funding is a factor in the choice of journal.
Why KEMÖ Matters Beyond Austria
KEMÖ is one of many national and regional academic library consortia now negotiating open-access terms collectively on behalf of member institutions — a model that has become the dominant mechanism for scaling open access in much of Europe over the past decade. For research administrators working across borders, or advising international collaborators with Austrian co-authors, understanding that a national consortium agreement (rather than an individual author’s grant or institutional policy) may already cover the APC is directly relevant to funding and compliance planning. It is also a useful comparison point alongside larger or earlier consortium models such as Projekt DEAL in Germany, and against funder-level open-access mandates such as those covered in CASRAI’s guides to open-access publishing routes and green open access and self-archiving.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does KEMÖ stand for?
KEMÖ is the abbreviation of Kooperation E-Medien Österreich, German for “E-Media Cooperation Austria.”
Is KEMÖ a funding agency?
No. KEMÖ is a library consortium, not a research funder. It negotiates licensing and open-access publishing terms on behalf of member institutions; actual research funding in Austria comes from bodies such as the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), which in some cases (such as the MDPI agreement) co-negotiates or co-funds specific open-access arrangements alongside KEMÖ.
How is KEMÖ different from Projekt DEAL?
Both are national consortia that negotiate open-access terms with publishers on behalf of member institutions, but they differ in scale and structure. Projekt DEAL represents the much larger German research sector and has negotiated a small number of very large, publisher-wide read-and-publish agreements (with Wiley, Springer Nature, and Elsevier). KEMÖ represents Austrian institutions and maintains a broader portfolio of agreements of varying structure — from full read-and-publish deals to discounted-APC and central-fund arrangements like its MDPI agreement with the FWF.
Does every KEMÖ member institution get the same open-access benefits?
Not necessarily. Individual member institutions can opt into specific publisher agreements, and some agreements (such as the FWF/MDPI arrangement) list a defined set of participating institutions rather than covering the full KEMÖ membership automatically. Researchers should verify their own institution’s participation directly.
Where can I find current KEMÖ agreement terms?
KEMÖ publishes current publisher agreement details, including which institutions are eligible and what the terms cover, on its own open-access pages at kemoe.at. Because terms are renegotiated on individual schedules, this is the authoritative current source rather than any third-party summary.
