EconStor, the open access repository for economics, exceeds 300.000 full texts

Press release News

Germany's largest repository for economics continues to grow – increasing importance of open access transformation

Kiel/Hamburg, 20 October 2025: The open access repository EconStor (www.econstor.eu) has surpassed the 300.000 mark for freely accessible economics publications. EconStor is operated by the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (www.zbw.eu) and is considered the central open access archive for economic research in Germany.

What began in 2009 as a platform for making economic research visible is now one of the largest open publication infrastructures for economics worldwide. Within five years, the number of publications in the EconStor open access repository has grown from 200.000 to 300.000 – a development that reflects the transformation in scientific communication.

This growth is fuelled by several sources: universities, research institutions and individual authors use EconStor as a trusted archive, while at the same time more and more scientific publishers are making their open access publications available via EconStor. This makes EconStor an important hub for the open access transformation in economics.

Economists from all over the world use EconStor in different ways:

  • As a source of information: in 2024, there were over 11.8 million downloads – an increase of almost 80 per cent compared to 2019.
  • As a publication archive: Around 800 institutional partners and over 1.000 individual authors archive their work here permanently, free of charge and citable.
  • As a distribution platform: EconStor reaches a global readership via international databases and search engines such as RePEc and Google Scholar.

By exceeding the 300.000 publication mark, EconStor confirms its role as a central infrastructure for open access to economic research, both nationally and internationally.

An international advisory board established in 2025 will accompany the strategic development of EconStor in the future. Representatives from economic research, information science and infrastructure operators will contribute their perspectives.

Olaf Siegert, Head of the Publication Services Department at the ZBW, emphasises: "We are delighted that EconStor is being used intensively not only in Germany but also internationally, by universities, research institutions and individual authors. At the same time, the importance of open access publications from publishing agreements is steadily increasing. This trend is being driven by numerous initiatives. These include the Diamond Open Access service centre in Germany and the OA2020 network internationally. With the new Advisory Board, we are also creating a forum for systematically incorporating feedback from the community into the further development of EconStor."

EconStor exemplifies the shift towards open science and sustainable publishing practices. As a repository of the ZBW, it not only offers technical stability and long-term availability, but also connection to international networks and standards – a significant contribution to the global visibility of economic research.