Effective February 4, 2025, the University of California (UC), together with 20 California State University (CSU) campuses, and 30 academic and research institutions represented by the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC), entered into a 4-year transformative open access agreement with Oxford University Press (OUP). The agreement provides the UC community with reading access to OUP journals and financial support to UC corresponding authors who publish their work open access. Authors at all ten UC campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) are eligible for this support.
Under the agreement, the UC Libraries provide financial support to UC corresponding authors for the payment of open access publishing fees, also known as article processing charges (APCs):
- UC corresponding authors who publish open access in OUP hybrid (subscription) journals receive an automatic $1000 contribution towards the APC, along with the option to receive full coverage of the APC for authors who lack research funds to pay the remainder.
- UC corresponding authors who publish in OUP’s fully open access journals receive an automatic $750 contribution towards the APC.
This agreement has two goals: (1) to support UC’s mission as a public university by making more UC-authored publications open to the world, and (2) to make it easier and more affordable for UC authors to publish open access.
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Agreement Basics
What are the basic terms of the agreement?
The agreement runs from February 4, 2025, to December 31, 2028, and enables UC corresponding authors to publish open access in nearly 500 OUP journals at reduced or no cost. The agreement also includes reading access to OUP journals.
How does the agreement work?
Under the agreement, the UC Libraries provide financial support to UC corresponding authors for the payment of open access publishing fees, also known as article processing charges (APCs).
The amount of support depends on whether you are publishing in a hybrid or fully open access journal:
- Hybrid journals: An automatic $1000 contribution towards the APC, along with the option to receive full coverage of the APC for authors who lack research funds to pay the remainder.
- Fully open access journals: An automatic $750 contribution towards the APC. At this time, a full coverage option is not available for fully open access journals due to the financial constraints of the agreement.
UC is shifting its investment from paying to read OUP journals to paying based on UC authors publishing in OUP journals. Based on careful modeling of UC publication rates, baseline fees have been established, with the amounts paid in bulk by UC. The exact amounts paid will be determined by UC corresponding author choices to publish open access. Cost controls have been put in place so that the total owed by UC in any year of the agreement is bounded.
Impact for Authors
Am I affected by this agreement?
Yes, if you are (1) a UC affiliate (faculty, lecturer, staff, graduate student, etc.) at any of UC’s ten campuses or LBNL, (2) you are the article’s corresponding author, and (3) you choose to publish your article in an OUP hybrid or fully open access journal..
Who is considered a corresponding author?
OUP considers the corresponding author to be the person listed as the contact during the submission/production/publication process, and who is identified as “Author for correspondence” on the final published article.
In general, the corresponding author is the person who oversees the manuscript and correspondence during the publication process — from manuscript corrections and proofreading, to handling the revisions and re-submission of revised manuscripts up to the acceptance of the manuscripts. The corresponding author has the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors in all matters pertaining to publication of the manuscript including supplementary material. The corresponding author acts as the point of contact for any inquiries after the paper is published.
Which articles and types of publications are covered by this agreement?
This agreement covers all articles containing original research that are accepted for publication from February 4, 2025 through December 31, 2028.
Which OUP journals are included in this agreement?
Nearly 500 OUP hybrid and fully open access journals are included in the agreement. To look up whether a particular journal is covered and the amount of coverage provided, you can search by journal name in our Journal Open Access Lookup Tool.
Why are articles published in OUP’s hybrid journals eligible for more funding than articles published in OUP's fully open access journals?
Like most of UC’s transformative open access publishing agreements, UC’s agreement with OUP works by transitioning the libraries’ existing journal subscription funds to instead pay to support UC authors who publish open access. However, existing subscription funds are not sufficient to cover the full costs of open access publishing by UC authors in OUP journals. UC and its partners in the agreement, including institutions from SCELC and CSU, have carefully structured the agreement to provide the maximum level of support possible within these constraints.
Article Payment Process
If I choose to publish open access, how do payments work?
Upon acceptance of your article and after you indicate your UC affiliation in the OUP author submission portal, you will be given the option to publish your article as open access under the UC-OUP agreement. To ensure that your article is properly flagged as eligible for open access coverage, it is recommended that you use your UC email address during the submission process in the OUP author portal.
OUP created an guide for UC authors publishing under the agreement that provides screenshots of the process below.
If you are publishing in an OUP hybrid journal:
- After your article has been accepted, you will receive an email from OUP with a link to select a license in OUP’s Online Licensing and Payments System, SciPris. After opening the link, click “continue with open access agreement.” SciPris will prompt you to create an account and will confirm your affiliation with UC.
- Once you are logged into SciPris, you will see messaging indicating that OUP has an agreement with UC that will cover the open access fees.
- Select a Creative Commons license and click “I accept.”
- You will then see a payment screen with the UC Libraries’ $1000 contribution automatically applied to the APC.
- If you have the research funds to pay the remaining APC:
- Select “I have the research funding to pay the remainder of the charge.”
- You will then be asked to enter billing details, after which OUP will send you an invoice for the remaining APC.
- If you do NOT have research funds to pay the remainder of the APC:
- Select “I do not have research funding to pay the remainder of the charge. I would like the University of California to pay the full fee through their agreement.”
- You will also be asked to identify the reason that full funding is needed, choosing from a menu of options (e.g., the research is not grant-funded and you have no other sources of funding available; the grant budget did not include money for publishing; etc.) This is for aggregate data collection purposes only and your response will not be tied to you or your article.
- Click “Send to institution for payment.”
- You do not need to contact your campus’s library to receive funding. Your request will be reviewed within one business day and if approved, your charge will be paid in full by the UC Libraries.
- You will not be sent an invoice for the APC remainder.
If you are publishing in an OUP fully open access journal:
- After your article has been accepted, you will receive an email from OUP with a link to select a license in OUP’s Online Licensing and Payments System, SciPris. After opening the link, click “continue with open access agreement.” SciPris will prompt you to create an account and will confirm your affiliation with UC.
- Once you are logged into SciPris, you will see messaging indicating that OUP has an agreement with UC that will cover the open access fees.
- Select a Creative Commons license and click “I accept.”
- You will see the UC Libraries’ $750 contribution be automatically applied to the APC.
- You will then be asked to enter billing details, after which OUP will send you an invoice for the remaining APC.
Resources
What if I have questions or need help?
More information is available via:
Or from your campus library:
Please submit any comments or questions to your campus library or to OpenAccessInquiries@ucop.edu.
