Article Processing Charge Support
Shocked by the price of open access publishing? UC Libraries can help you cover your fees.
Search for Supported Journals
What Are Article Processing Charges?
An article publication charge (APC) is a fee that publishers charge authors to support open access publication. An alternative to the subscription revenue model, APCs can be anywhere from several hundred dollars to over ten thousand dollars. While open access addresses inequities in access, the costs associated with open access publishing create an inequity of contribution for authors. UC Libraries removes the financial barrier to engaging with publisher open access models through its open access waiver program.
How Does the Program Work?
UC Libraries currently has agreements in place with thirteen different scholarly publishers that waive article processing charges (APCs) for corresponding authors affiliated with the University of Cincinnati, including faculty, staff, and students. Called read and publish agreements, these arangements grant the UC community access to paywalled research while creating an opportunity for open access publication.
Waivers are available to all University of Cincinnati faculty, staff, and students. Affiliation with the University must be active for the corresponding author at the time that the article is accepted. Note that a UC Health or Cincinnati Children's Hospital affiliation is not sufficient on its own; the corresponding author must also hold an active dual affiliation to the University of Cincinnati.
Authors must submit their article using either a uc.edu email address or an email address from a University of Cincinnati Electronic Mail Partner.
The University of Cincinnati currently supports waivers for over 6,000 journals across thirteen publishers:
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)
- Cambridge University Press
- Elsevier*
- IOP Publishing
- International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE)
- International Water Association (IWA)
- Microbiology Society
- Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
- Springer Nature*
- The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
- The Company of Biologists (COB)
- Wiley*
Note that coverage is not universal and that several publishers include waiver coverage for only a subset of their titles. Search for journals with coverage.
*Denotes a limited supply (or cap) on waivers
Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley place a limit on the number of waivers that can be issued each year. Approaching (and hit) limits are noted in the journal search tool. Once that limit is reached, corresponding authors will no longer see the option to publish open access at no charge during their article publishing process. Corresponding authors in hybrid journals have two options:
- Publish open access and pay the APC out of pocket, or
- Publish the article under the traditional subscription access model at no charge.
Only the first option applies to fully open access journals.
Waivers are "spent" at acceptance and replenished on January 1st. Look at journal turnaround times (submission to acceptance) and time submission accordingly to increase the likelihood of waiver availability.
All pubishers cover research articles, but coverage for other article types varies by publisher. Check the details for a specific agreement to verify coverage.
At this time, there is no article processing charge funding available outside of the waivers program.