Some OA publishers fund their publications by charging the author a fee, known as an Article Processing Charge or APC.

For more information, see publisher-hosted open access.

About campus-based Open Access publishing funds

An open access fund is a pool of money set aside by a university library to help cover APCs and other OA publication charges on behalf of affiliated authors. Several universities across the United States have implemented OA publishing funds to support their faculty’s OA publishing efforts. Authors can generally apply for support from these funds when other funding sources (such as research grants, where APCs are often allowable expenses) are unavailable.

OA publishing funds at UC campuses

The following UC campus libraries administer an OA fund to provide financial support to faculty and researchers:

• UC Berkeley: Berkeley Research Impact Initiative
• UC Davis: UC Davis Open Access Fund & TOME Open Access Monograph Fund
• UC Santa Barbara: UCSB Open Access Publishing Fund

Publishing discounts

For several publishers, UC authors are entitled to a discount off of the APC through a membership or license agreement.  For more information see our list of publisher discounts.