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Publish Journal Articles Open Access: Paying for Open Access

This guide contains information relevant to staff and students wanting to publish their journal articles Open Access.

A cartoon man surrounded by stacks of gold coins

Part of your pre-submission journal selection checklist should be whether you can publish Open Access. If there will be a fee for Open Access, usually called an APC, make sure you know who will pay it before you submit or choose the Open Access option. 

This section details the funding mechanisms for articles published in journals.

Check the publisher deals that are currently in place. Many of these offer automatic Open Access as long as the corresponding author (designated at the submission stage) is affiliated to University of Reading.

The deals cover thousands of hybrid (subscription) journals and a few fully Open Access (pure gold) journals. There is often no need to apply for funding in advance, obtain purchase orders or generate invoices. See the publisher deals tab for further details, or search for a journal included in a deal using the SciFree tool below:

 

Search with SciFree

If you acknowledge UKRI or other external funding, and your journal is not included in a transformative agreement, please see information for funded authors below, for details on how to apply for Open Access funding. Unfortunately, no funding is available for these journals for authors without UKRI funding, but the transformative agreements remain available to all. Please see the information for non-funded authors below for further details.

Non-funded Authors

Authors with no external funding for Open Access

There are a number of ways in which you can make your work Open Access if you do not acknowledge external funding.

Gold Open AccessGold Open Access logo

Gold Open Access is when you pay a fee (usually called an APC) to the publisher to make your article open access. If you are publishing in a journal included in one of our publisher deals, this fee will be automatically covered. If you do not acknowledge external funding, unfortunately the University has no funding available to cover APCs in journals outside of the publisher deals. Some journals are hybrids, where publishing Open Access and paying the associated cost is optional, but others are fully Open Access and require a charge to be paid for every paper. You must not submit to a journal that will levy an APC without first checking that the APC will be covered by a publisher deal. There is guidance on finding journals in deals available in the next tab.

Green Open AccessGreen open access logo

By depositing your author accepted manuscript in CentAUR, you can achieve Open Access via the green route. The CentAUR team will make your manuscript freely available once any embargo stipulated by the publisher expires. This route will not incur any cost.

Diamond Open Access

Some journals are able to publish articles Open Access without charging the author or the author's institution. These are sometimes known as Diamond Open Access journals. If you search the Directory of Open Access Journals, you can filter your search to only return results where the publisher does not charge a fee.

For authors without UKRI funding (eg. NERC, MRC, BBSRC, AHRC, STFC etc), Open Access publication will only be possible via the journals included in our deals with publishers. To find journals included in the deals, please use the SciFree tool or check the Publisher Deals tab. 

The deals will only apply if the corresponding author is based at University of Reading and declares their affiliation as University of Reading at the submission stage. The deals apply for staff and student members of the University. If you have any questions or queries about eligible journals, contact the Open Access requests team. 

You must not submit to a journal that will levy an APC without first checking that the APC will be covered by a publisher deal. 

You can download a flowchart which will show you how you can achieve Open Access at the University of Reading, if you do not acknowledge any funding.

If you choose a journal in a publisher deal the usual work flow is shown below:

  1. Submit to the journal with a University of Reading author designated as the corresponding author and declaring their affiliation as University of Reading. It also helps to use your University of Reading email address. 
  2. At acceptance the publisher should recognise the article as eligible for the deal and offer Open Access to you. Read the email carefully and follow the recommended steps. 
  3. Choose the most open CC BY licence and accept the offer of Open Access.
  4. The Open Access requests team may be asked to approve the request. They will contact you to let you know that the request has been approved. 
  5. Article published Open Access with no invoice or purchase order required. 
  6. Add the article to CentAUR as soon as possible after acceptance. 

If you have queries or questions contact the Open Acess requests team at oarequests@reading.ac.uk.

Funded authors

UKRI Funded authors 

Any authors publishing articles that acknowledge UKRI/RCUK funding must make their articles Open Access, either via green or gold Open Access. For further details of the UKRI Open Access requirements, please check the Policies tab in this guide. 

We receive a block grant for payment of Open Access charges from UKRI but the value of this block grant has significantly decreased in recent years. This means that funds are now only available for UKRI-funded work which meets the following criteria:

1. The article is to be published in a fully Open Access (pure gold) journal (i.e. the journal does not charge a subscription fee and is freely available online to all) and is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

OR

2. The article is to be published in a hybrid (subscription) journal that is listed by JISC as a transformative/transitional journal and must comply with the licencing and immediate access requirements of the UKRI policy in order for the APC to be funded from our UKRI block grant. 

No colour or page charges can be paid from the UKRI block grant. 

If your article meets one of the criteria listed above, firstly check for any publisher transformative agreements using the Publisher Deals tab, and then fill in the Open Access funding request form.

Please note that you must fill in the Open Access funding request form before any funds can be allocated.

British Heart Foundation

The University has a small grant from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) for APCs. If you are funded by BHF and would like to publish in a journal that is not covered by one of our deals please apply for funding using the Open Access funding request form before submitting your work. Please make sure that you include your grant number on the request form.

Other funders

For externally funded research from other sources, the author should first check their funder's policy on Open Access before applying to University of Reading for support. Some funders, for example, Wellcome Trust, provide grant holders with funds to cover APCs for certain types of journals.  

You can download a flowchart which will show you how to comply with UKRI's Open Access policy below.

The work flow is slightly different for hybrid (subscription) journals in publisher deals where no invoice will be levied and some fully Open Access (pure gold) journals (in or out of deals) that will issue an invoice. 

If you do not apply for funding in advance of submission, we cannot guarantee that there will be funds to cover the APC. 

Hybrid (subscription) journals in deals

If you choose a journal in a publisher deal the usual work flow is shown below:

  1. Submit to the journal with a University of Reading author designated as the corresponding author and declaring their affiliation as University of Reading. It also helps to use your University of Reading email address. 
  2. At acceptance the publisher should recognise the article as eligible for the deal and offer Open Access to you. Read the email carefully and follow the recommended steps. 
  3. Choose the most open CC BY licence and accept the offer of Open Access.
  4. The Open Access requests team may be asked to approve the request. They will contact you to let you know that the request has been approved. 
  5. Article published Open Access with no invoice or purchase order required. 
  6. Add the article to CentAUR as soon as possible after acceptance. 
Fully Open Access (pure gold) journals

Please note: If you do not apply for funding in advance of submission, we cannot guarantee that there will be funds to cover the APC. 

  1. Apply for funding using the Open Access request form before submission to the journal. This must be done for all journals unless they are clearly included in a publisher deal. Any journal that is marked as 'Limited' in SciFree needs to be applied for in advance of submission. 
  2. If funds are available and the journal complies with your funder's policy, the Open Access requests team will request a purchase order for you and the APC will be allocated to the UKRI block grant. 
  3. Submit to the journal and declare your affiliation as University of Reading. You should also add the details of your funding at the submission stage. It also helps to use your University of Reading email address.
  4. At acceptance, ask the publisher to add the purchase order number to the invoice. 
  5. Send the publisher's invoice to oarequests@reading.ac.uk promptly.  
  6. The invoice will be processed for payment. Please note, payment can take a couple of weeks and is unlikely to be made before the invoice due date. 
  7. Add the article to CentAUR as soon as possible after acceptance.

If you have queries or questions contact the Open Access requests team at oarequests@reading.ac.uk.