The agreement runs from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2024 (NOTE: 2025 renewal is in process) and covers open access publishing in the Biochemical Society / Portland Press’s hybrid (subscription-based) and open access journals. It includes all ten UC campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  

Under the agreement, the UC libraries will automatically pay the first $1,000 of the open access fee, or article processing charge (APC), for all UC authors who choose to publish in a Biochemical Society / Portland Press journal. Authors who do not have research funds available for this purpose 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 with the Biochemical Society / Portland Press. For details, see below under “Article Payment Process.”

UC has shifted its investment from paying to read Biochemical Society / Portland Press journals to paying based on UC authors publishing in Biochemical Society / Portland Press journals. Based on careful modeling of UC publication rates, baseline fees have been established, with these amounts paid in bulk by UC. The exact amounts paid will be determined by UC corresponding author choices to publish open access, and the amount authors contribute from their research funds.  

Cost controls have been put in place so that the total owed by UC in any year of the agreement is bounded, and APC rates will remain the same throughout the term of the agreement.

Yes, if you are (1) a UC affiliate (faculty, lecturer, staff, graduate student) at one of UC’s campuses or the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, (2) you are the article’s corresponding author, and (3) you choose to publish your article open access in Biochemical Society / Portland Press journals.

If you want to publish your article open access in Biochemical Society / Portland Press journals, UC has negotiated a deal that will make it more cost effective for you to do so. If you want to publish in Society journals but do not want to publish open access, you can still publish your article as paywalled (pay-to-read or subscription only) content in Society journals. 

The agreement also expands reading access to the Society’s journals to all UC-affiliated faculty, lecturers, staff, and students.

Only corresponding authors are covered by the publishing aspects of this agreement. 

The Biochemical Society / Portland Press considers the corresponding author to be the person listed as the contact person 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.

All articles in Biochemical Society / Portland Press journals are covered by this agreement. 

The agreement  will apply to articles accepted from January 1, 2022,  through December 31, 2024. (NOTE: 2025 renewal is in process.)  

For articles accepted after January 1, 2021 but before the launch of this workflow on February 10, 2022, the Portland Press / Biochemical Society will reach out to authors to ask them retrospectively about this choice, and the steps will follow as laid out below under “Article Payment Process.”

All of the Biochemical Society / Portland Press’s journals are included, which include Biochemical Journal, Clinical Science, Bioscience Reports, Neuronal Signaling, Biochemical Society Transactions, Essays in Biochemistry, and Emerging Topics in Life Sciences.

If you are a UC corresponding author and you confirm the open access default publishing option through the Biochemical Society / Portland Press’s article submission system after your article has been accepted, you will be asked to log into their payment processing system called CCC RightsLink.

(It is necessary to set up an account in RightsLink first; if you do not have an account, you will be prompted to create one within RightsLink during the payment process.) 

Then it’s just a matter of clicking through the following steps in the RightsLink system, including: 

1. Select the option to receive funding from UC libraries.

Your selection initiates the UC libraries’ contribution of at least $1,000 toward your article processing charge. Once you select this option, you will see a summary of charges that breaks the fee into two components: the $1,000 that the UC libraries will automatically pay, and the remainder that you will be asked to pay if you have research funds available for this purpose.

2. Indicate whether you have research funds available to pay the author’s portion of the article processing charge.

Choose whether you have research funds available to pay the remaining balance due, or whether you do not have such funds available and need the UC libraries to cover any remaining balance.

3. If you indicated that you do not have research funds available for the balance of the article processing charge, identify the reason full funding is needed.

Choose from a menu of options about why full funding is needed (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.)

After making these choices, you will still see the two components of the article processing charge (first $1,000 funded by UC, and balance funded by UC) on the charges estimate screen. Click “Payment Options” to proceed to the next step, where you will submit a request for full funding from the UC libraries. Your request will be reviewed within one business day and if approved, your charge will be paid in full by the libraries. You will be contacted if your request is denied for any reason.

4. If you indicated that you do have research funds available for the balance of the article processing charge, you will be invoiced.

If you select this option, you will see your portion of the article processing charge disappear from the charges estimate; you will pay this charge later in the process.  Click “Payment Options” to proceed to the next step.

You will first be asked to submit the UC libraries-funded component ($1,000) for approval. Then you will be prompted to pay the remaining balance. You can make this payment via credit card or request an invoice.

• If you don’t have research funds and you want to publish open access, the libraries will pay your full article processing charge. See above under “if I choose to publish open access, how do payments work?”

• Yes. Where and how you publish is your decision. The agreement with the Biochemical Society / Portland Press does not mandate open access publishing, nor does it dictate your journal selection. Rather, it makes the open access publishing option for Society journals more affordable. You can opt out. 

More information is available via:

• The Biochemical Society / Portland Press press release
• Announcement of Portland Press / Biochemical Society agreement
• Memorandum of Understanding

Or from your campus library:

• UC Berkeley 
• UC Davis
• UC Irvine 
• UCLA 
• UC Merced 
• UC Riverside 
• UC San Diego 
• UC San Francisco
• UC Santa Barbara 
• UC Santa Cruz