The ESAC initiative was established in 2014 in order to keep up the discussion about open access workflows and administrative burdens related to the management of open access article processing charges. In 2013 an [international workshop] (http://esac-initiative.org/activities/apc-workshop-2013/) was organized on that topic in Berlin by the Max Planck Digital Library in cooperation with colleagues from the German Reserach Foundation (DFG), PLOS and Co-Action Publishing. As with November 2015 ESAC moved into the DFG funded project INTACT. Located at the MPDL, ESAC persues the the developement of agreed service standards for Gold Open Access charges. This includes:

• help shaping the principles and conditions of the apc based business model
• gain more evidence on institutional apc workflows and their respective challenges involved
• partner with publishers in order to work on the improvement of processes such as submission and author identification, invoicing and reporting
• become a reference point and network in order to communicate good practices and guidelines on this subjects

www.esac-initiative.org