Paying for Gold Open Access to Journal Articles

UPDATED AUGUST 2022 TO INCLUDE NEW PUBLISHER DEALS

The University has a limited Article Processing Charge (APC) Application Fund to pay Open Access costs for journal articles. All applications are subject to the approval of the College Research Director and budget constraints, as the fund is very limited.

The Institutional APC Fund’s primary aim is to enable academic freedom to publish in the context of ensuring wide readership and impact for research. If the most appropriate place to publish is a gold, fully open access journal, then the fund will enable this.

What we may pay for

The fund covers APCs for articles published in pure gold journals, e.g. those that are entirely free to read.  Please see DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) for listing.

The applicant must be the lead, or corresponding author and a member of university staff.  The fund is not open to doctoral researchers (other than when they appear as a co-author of a paper submitted by a qualifying staff member).

What we won’t pay for

It does not cover gold access to individual papers in hybrid journals (those that charge a subscription for the journal, and APCs to make individual articles open).  You may still publish in these journals and, for the vast majority, we will be able to make the accepted author manuscript freely available through WestminsterResearch.  The open release may be subject to an embargo period set by the publisher.
You may be able to publish through gold open access in some of these hybrid journals without paying an APC, if we have signed up to a ‘Read & Publish’ agreement with that journal (see below for the publisher list).

As this fund is very limited, we will not pay for applications without support of your College Research Director, who helps inform us on the best use of the resources we have.

Please do not commit the University to payment before an application to the Fund is successful.  Any application needs to be approved by the College Research Director and repository team before an author commits the University to payment.

Gold Open Access without fees at the point of publication

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): The majority of fully gold OA journals listed by the DOAJ do not charge authors an APC.  Check journals on an individual basis.
• Springer: As our institution has a Springer Compact agreement, you may publish your article open access – at no charge to yourself – in more than 1,850 of Springer’s journals. You do not need to apply through the University. Further information is available.
• Sage (including IMechE and RSM): Corresponding authors affiliated with the University of Westminster may publish their articles through Gold Open Access in 900+ subscription journals in the current SAGE Premier package, as well as in the IMechE Journal Collection and the Royal Society of Medicine Collection.  Further information is available.
• Cambridge University Press: We have a similar agreement for CUP journals.  Please see the CUP post for more detail.
• Wiley: We have a similar agreement for Wiley journals.  Please see the Wiley post for more detail.
• Taylor & Francis: Taylor & Francis Open Select journals (including Routledge) now also has a ‘read and publish’ agreement.  See the T&F post for more details.
• Public Library of Science (PLOS): an agreement is now in place, allowing Westminster authors to publish in the gold open access journals: PLOS ONE, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, and PLOS Pathogens, without having to pay individual APCs.  More details in the PLOS post.
• Elsevier: We have a similar agreement for Elsevier journals.  Please see the Elsevier post for more detail.
• American Chemical Society (ACS): Our agreement with ACS journals, covers articles in both hybrid (subscription) and Gold open access (fully open) journals. Please see the ACS post for more detail.
• American Psychological Association (APA): We have a similar agreement for APA journals.  Please see the APA post for more detail.

Further information, including a link to the application form is available on the Article Processing Charges (APC) Application Fund webpage.

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Nina Watts

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