The University of California has transformative open access publishing agreements and publishing discounts in place with a broad range of scholarly publishers, including several of the world’s largest commercial journal publishers, as well as society, not-for-profit, and fully open access publishers. These agreements and discounts are in place to make it easier and more affordable for UC authors to publish open access by reducing the amount that authors are responsible for paying when publishing open.

Under most transformative open access agreements, the UC libraries will automatically pay the first $1000 of the open access fee, or article processing charge (APC) for UC corresponding authors who choose to publish in a covered journal. Authors who do not have research funds available can request full funding of the APC from the libraries, ensuring that lack of research funds does not present a barrier for UC authors who wish to publish open access.  For information on UC’s transformative agreement under which UC authors are eligible for significant support to publish open access, please see UC-Publisher Relationships.

For many journals that are not otherwise covered under UC’s transformative open access agreements, UC authors may still take advantage of publishing discounts when paying APCs to make their articles openly available. Some of these discounts are obtained through paid memberships, some are negotiated into institutional licenses with the publisher, and some are offered by the publisher in exchange for subscriptions.

Click the publisher or resource name, below, for more information on the publishing benefits available to UC authors.

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American Association for the Advancement of Science

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 10% (additional 4% discount available for AAAS members)
  • Eligible journals: Science Advances
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LLNL, LBNL

American Chemical Society

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: Single, discounted APC of $3000 (unless APC list price is lower than $3000); fully covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing
  • Eligible journals: All ACS journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LLNL, LBNL

Association for Computing Machinery

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 100% (no cost to author)
  • Eligible journals: Research articles in all ACM journals, proceedings and magazines
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LLNL, LBNL

Biochemical Society/Portland Press

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: First $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All Biochemical Society/Portland Press journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL

BioMed Central

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 15% in addition first $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All BioMed Central journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses (does not include LLNL or LBNL)

Cambridge University Press

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 30% in addition first $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All CUP Journals with an OA option. Excludes small number of society-owned journals and articles ineligible for APCs (e.g. book reviews, editorial material)
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses

Canadian Science Publishing

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: First $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All CSP journals
  • UC locations covered: 9 UC campuses (does not include UCSF, LBNL, LLNL)

Company of Biologists

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: First $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All CoB journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL

Electrochemical Society

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 100% (no cost to author)
  • Eligible journals: All ECS Digital Library journals
  • UC locations covered: 9 campuses, LBNL, LNLL (does not include UCSF)

Elsevier

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: First $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All Elsevier journals, excluding a limited number of society journals. Cell Press/Lancet journals are eligible as of September 1, 2022.
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL, LLNL

IEEE

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: APC is fully covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing. Authors with grant funds for OA publication are asked to pay the full APC. Overlength page charges are covered for all authors whether or not they choose to publish OA.
  • Eligible journals: All IEEE journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses (does not include LBNL or LLNL)

JMIR Publications

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: First $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All JMIR journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL, LLNL

Karger

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 50%
  • Eligible journals: Karger OA journals
  • UC locations covered: 9 campuses (does not include UCSF)

National Academy of Sciences

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: Single reduced APC of $3000 per article
  • Eligible journals: PNAS
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LLBL, LLNL

Oxford University Press / Nucleic Acids Research

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 50%
  • Eligible journals: Nucleic Acids Research
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses

PLoS

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: First $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All PLoS journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LLBL, LLNL

Royal Society

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: First $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All Royal Society journals
  • UC locations covered: 9 campuses, LBNL, LLNL (does not include UCSF)

Royal Society of Chemistry

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 15%
  • Eligible journals: All RSC subscription journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses

SAGE

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 20% for hybrid journals, 15% for fully open access journals; in addition, first $1000 covered. Remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing
  • Eligible journals: All SAGE journals, excluding small number of society journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL, LLNL

SPIE

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 25%
  • Eligible journals: Journal of Biomedical Optics, Neurophotonics
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses

Springer Nature

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: For Springer portfolio, first $1000 covered, with remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing. For Nature portfolio, first $1000 covered.
  • Eligible journals: Both Springer and Nature journals are included in the agreement, but see FAQ for funding options for each portfolio.
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses (does not include LBNL or LLNL)

Taylor & Francis

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount or funding available: 75% for hybrid OA journals; cap of 75% of standard hybrid price for full OA journals
  • Eligible journals: T&F Open and Open Select journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses

University of California Press

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount and funding available: 100%
  • Eligible journals: Collabra: Psychology and Elementa
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses

Wiley

  • Agreement main page
  • Discount and funding available: 15% for all UC authors; first $1000 covered and remainder covered for authors without grant funds for OA publishing.
  • Eligible journals: All Wiley journals
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL

For more information about UC’s transformative agreements, please contact OpenAccessInquiries@ucop.edu, or your campus library:

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