How to fund Open Access for your publicationThis section details the funding mechanisms for articles published in journals. Please see the Research books & chapters section of this guide for more information on applying for funding for monographs.
IMPORTANT: The fund to support unfunded authors with article processing charges has been paused as of October 2023. No new applications will be funded. Most of the publisher deals are still available for staff and students. Use the SciFree tool to check current deals and contact the Open Access requests team if you have any queries.
Check the publisher deals that are currently in place. Many of these offer automatic Open Access as long as the corresponding author is affiliated to University of Reading. The deals cover hundreds of hybrid (subscription) journals and a few fully Open Access (Gold) journals. There is often no need to apply for funding in advance, obtain purchase orders or generate invoices. Full details are given on the Publisher APC discounts & deals section of this guide.
The SciFree tool has been customised to include the publisher deals and agreements that University of Reading has signed up to. It can help in your journal choices and give you information on how to can be used to check whether a journal you would like to submit to will be covered by one of our publisher deals.
This section details the funding mechanisms for articles published in journals.
Use the tabs to the right to select whether your research was funded or not.
Please see the Research books & chapters section of this guide for more information on applying for funding for monographs.
Before applying for funding, please check the publisher deals that are currently in place. Many of these offer automatic Open Access as long as the corresponding author is affiliated to University of Reading. The deals cover hundreds of hybrid (subscription) journals and some fully Open Access journals. There is often no need to apply for funding in advance, obtain purchase orders or generate invoices. Full details are given on the Publisher APC discounts & deals section of this guide.
Any authors publishing articles which 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 UKRI policy page 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 RCUK-funded work which meets the following criteria:
1. The article is to be published in a pure Gold Open Access 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 Processing Charge (Open Access fee) is less than £1000 (excluding VAT, and once any publisher discounts/vouchers have been taken into consideration). The journal must be listed 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.
In certain circumstances, page charges in addition to the APC may be paid for UKRI-funded authors. Please check with the Open Access requests team before committing to pay page charges. No colour charges will be funded.
If your article meets one of the criteria listed above, firstly check for any publisher transformative agreements 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.
The University has a small grant from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) for APCs. If you are funded by the BHF, please apply for funding using the Open Access request form. Please make sure that you include your grant number on the request form.
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.
If your funder does not provide support for the payment of APCs, you can apply for funding using the Open Access request form.
In order to be considered for funding, the following must apply:
1. There is no other funding available because:
a. the funding body which funded the research does not offer funds for Open Access publishing
b. the relevant grant has finished
2a. The article is to be published in a pure Gold Open Access 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
2b. The Article Processing Charge (Open Access fee) is less than £1000 (excluding VAT, and once any publisher discounts/vouchers have been taken into consideration)
If your article meets these criteria, firstly check for any publisher-specific discounts and deals 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.
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: https://search.scifree.se/reading. 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. If you have any questions or queries about eligible journals, contact the oarequests 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.
It is always important to select the right journal for your research output.
This is particularly important if your research was funded by organisations such as UKRI or the Wellcome Trust as they have strict stipulations about the journals that you can publish in.
There are some less reputable Open Access journals around that will take your money but not do a good job of peer reviewing or publishing your work. There are lots of checks you can do to find a reputable journal. For further advice contact the Research Engagement Team.
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a good starting point for finding a good quality Open Access journal. Journals listed by the DOAJ have to comply with a set of standards and requirements that include publishing best practices. If you are publishing in a fully Open Access journal, your APC will be funded by the University of Reading (subject to budget limitations) as long as the journal is listed in DOAJ.
The Directory aims to be comprehensive and cover all Open Access academic journals that use an appropriate quality control system and is not limited to particular languages, geographical region, or subject areas. The Directory aims to increase the visibility and ease of use of Open Access academic journals—regardless of size and country of origin—thereby promoting their visibility, usage and impact.
Some journals have been awarded the DOAJ seal which means that they have achieved a high level of openness, adhere to Best Practice and high publishing standards. To receive the Seal, a journal must comply with the following 7 conditions:
This is a list of commonly used fully Open Access publishers previously used by staff and students at University of Reading. It is possible that not all of the journals in their portfolios would be covered by the University of Reading Open Access fund. You should check each journal separately in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to verify that they are listed.
Most established publishers will also have fully Open Access (Gold) journals as part of their product range. Check the publisher's websites to find fully Open Access journals or use tools such as Scopus or the DOAJ to identify suitable options.
For help and support with queries about open access funding, please contact the open access requests team at University of Reading. The first point of contact is by email to OArequests@reading.ac.uk.
The open access requests team: Sophie Dorman, Karen Rowlett and Lindsay Warwick (L-R).