Research publishing : where to publish

What is an Article Processing Charge (APC):

• A one-off payment to cover the costs of publishing and publishing services in gold or hybrid Open Access journals. 
• The APC is paid by either the author, the funder, the institution or the employer. The fee is payable when your manuscript is accepted, but before it is published.
• Paying this fee means that your research will be open immediately upon publication with a Creative Commons license via the publisher's website.
• APC fees vary by journal.
• APCs are charged to authors of scholarly articles during the publication process (editing, peer review, hosting, archiving, preservation). APCs are used by open access journals in lieu of subscription fees that libraries and readers traditionally have paid to gain access to research articles.
• Diamond open access journals/ platforms do not charge subscriptions fees, nor publication fees to authors. They are free to access/read and free to publish in (no APC). These initiatives are usually non-profit, run by and for academics.

UOB Libraries do not provide funding in support of Article Processing Charges (APCs) to make research papers Open Access, nor do we purchase memberships to attain APC discounts.
Wherever possible, the Library negotiates license agreements with publishers that will provide UOB authors with discounts or waivers on APCs, as part of our ongoing subscriptions

Reasearch4Life is a public-private partnership of the World Health Organization; Food and Agriculture Organization; United Nations Environment Programme; World Intellectual Property Organization; International Labour Organization; Cornell and Yale Universities; The International Association of Scientific, and more than 200 international publishers.

Research4Life is the collective name of five programs—Hinari (biomedical and health literature), AGORA (food and agriculture), OARE (environment), ARDI (scientific and technical information) and GOALI (law and social sciences)—that provide developing countries with free or low-cost access to academic and professional peer-reviewed content online in the disciplines of medicine, agriculture, environment, technology, and law and to reduce the knowledge gap between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries by providing affordable access to scholarly, professional and research information.

Automatic Research4Life Waivers and Discounts

Corresponding authors in countries classified as Group A or Group B*  by Research4Life are eligible for a full or partial waiver, which will be applied automatically. 

*World Bank Country and Lending Groups

Note: As of January 2023, Lebanon will be moving from Group B to Group A, which entitles us to 100% waivers for fully Open Access (Gold) publications.

• An author’s eligibility will not affect peer review or editorial decision-making. The waiver application process is not managed or shared with the journal’s academic editors or peer reviewers. 
• Waivers and discounts that fall under the Research4Life program are allocated during the submission process when corresponding authors (and sometimes the co-authors) are located in one of the listed countries and applied upon acceptance of the article.
• APCs waiver and discounts schemes and policies vary from publisher to publisher regarding corresponding authors.
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Notable publishers/societies offering reduced or waived APCs

(click on publisher's logo for its APC policy)

                       
For full list of publishers and societies click here 

Please note that even if a publisher is not part of the Research4Life, most Open Access publishers / journals will offer APC waivers for authors from low-income countries and lower middle-income countries and scholars who lack funds due to financial hardship. 

While many popular Open Access journals do require Author/Article Processing Charges (APC), "Diamond" Open Access journals publish work at no cost to the reader or the authors. You can find Open Access journals that don't charge APCs by searching in Directory of Open Access Journals