Discounts and Funding for Open Access Publishing

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Increasing the impact of UCSF research

Open access publishing offers wider dissemination, higher visibility, and faster discovery of published research.

To promote broad public access to the work of UCSF scholars, the University of California (as a system) and the UCSF Library (individually) provide various forms of funding support to encourage authors to publish open access. Find out more about UC’s approach to publisher agreements.

How to navigate publication discounts on this page

How to identify whether there is a discount or funding for your journal or book
  • Use the Journal Open Access Lookup Tool (JOLT) to search for journals included in UC agreements. Additional UCSF-only journal agreements are in the table below (American Physiological Society, BMJ Case Reports, Cold Spring Harbor, MDPI, and Microbiology Society)
  • For journals covered by a UCSF-only agreement, determine who publishes the journal or book you would like open access (OA) funding support for and find the publisher by name below. If you are unsure of a journal's publisher, search the journal title in Scopus Sources. The publisher's name will be listed in the full record.
  • Look for the publisher by name below, and check the coverage details. Terms vary between agreements, and there are not yet agreements with all publishers.
How to find journals with open access funding support to submit your work
  • Use the Journal Open Access Lookup Tool (JOLT) to search for journals included in UC agreements. Some of these publishers also have journal finder tools to identify journal matches with your article title, abstract, and/or keywords.
  • Additional UCSF-only agreements are in the table below (American Physiological Society, BMJ Case Reports, Cold Spring Harbor, MDPI, and Microbiology Society). Browse the title lists for these publishers to find relevant journals. 
  • See Steps to Finding the Right Journal for additional tips from the Library on finding and evaluating journals for publication and contact us for help.
What to do if funding is not available for your journal or publisher

Funding support and discounts by publisher - journals

Search for journals covered by UC agreements using the new Journal Open Access Lookup Tool (JOLT)

Additional UCSF-only journal agreements are in the table below (American Physiological Society, BMJ Case Reports, Cold Spring Harbor, MDPI, and Microbiology Society)

The University of California (UC) and UCSF have open access agreements with the following scholarly journal publishers. These agreements enable all UC or UCSF-affiliated corresponding authors to publish their scholarly articles open access at reduced or no cost. Select the publisher name below for details, including eligible journals and article types, and the discount or funding level. See the general FAQ for UC's open access agreements.

APC stands for article processing charge for open access publishing.

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) –  Science Advances only
  • Eligible journal: Science Advances
  • Discount or funding available:
    • 10% discount
    • Additional 4% discount available for AAAS members
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LLNL, LBNL
  • Effective dates: Ongoing
  • See full details about the UC AAAS discount
American Chemical Society (ACS)
  • Eligible journals: All ACS journals. 
  • Discount or funding available:
    • Single, discounted APC of $3,000 (unless APC list price is lower than $3,000)
    • Full APC covered for authors without funds available for open access publishing
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LLNL, LBNL
  • Effective dates: January 1, 2022 – December 31, 2025
  • See full details about the UC-ACS agreement
American Physiological Society (APS)
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
  • Eligible journals: Research and review articles in all ACM journals, proceedings and magazines 
  • Discount or funding available: APC fully covered (no cost to author)
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LLNL, LBNL
  • Effective dates: January 1, 2020 – December 31, 2025
  • See full details about the UC-ACM agreement
Biochemical Society/Portland Press
  • Eligible journals: All Biochemical Society/Portland Press journals
  • Discount or funding available:
    • First $1,000 of APC automatically covered
    • Full APC covered for authors without funds available for open access publishing
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL
  • Effective dates: January 1, 2022 – December 31, 2024
  • See full details about the UC-Biochemical Society agreement
BioMed Central (BMC)  – part of Springer Nature
  • Eligible journals: All BMC journals
  • Discount or funding available:
    • 15% discount
    • First $1,000 of APC automatically covered
    • Full APC covered for authors without funds available for open access publishing
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses
  • Effective dates: 15% discount is ongoing. See Springer Nature for dates of library support in covering the APC.
  • See full details about the UC BMC discount
BMJ – BMJ Case Reports Institutional Fellowship only
  • Eligible journals: BMJ Case Reports
  • Discount or funding available:
    • UCSF’s institutional fellowship covers 100% of the standard publication fee only.
    • Open access publishing fee is not covered.
    • Obtain fellowship code (requires UCSF MyAccess login).
  • UCSF only
Cambridge University Press
  • Eligible journals: All journals marked as "open access" or "contains open access." A small number of society-owned journals that do not yet offer an open access option are excluded.
  • Eligible articles: research articles, review articles, Brief Reports, and Case Reports
  • Discount or funding available:
    • 30% discount
    • First $1,000 of APC automatically covered
    • Full APC covered for authors without funds available for open access publishing.
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses
  • Effective dates: January 2019 – December 31, 2025
  • See full details about the UC-Cambridge University Press agreement
Cold Spring Harbor Lab Press
    • Eligible journals: Genes & Development, Genome Research, Learning & Memory, and RNA
    • Eligible articles: research, review, and case study articles
    • Discounted OA fee of $1800.05 (51% discount)
      • No separate publication charges
      • As of January 1, 2025, the discounted fee will be $2035 (45% discount)
    • UCSF corresponding authors only
    • Effective dates: eligible articles accepted between Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024
    • 2025 effective dates: eligible articles accepted between Jan 1 - Dec 31, 2025 will receive a 45% discount
    • CSHLP's FAQ for Authors

Notes: Molecular Case Studies is no longer published as of 2024.

Company of Biologists (CoB)
  • Eligible journals: All CoB journals and article types
  • Discount or funding available:
    • 10% discount
    • First $1,000 of APC automatically covered
    • Full APC covered for authors without funds available for open access publishing
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL
  • Effective dates: January 1, 2021 – December 31, 2026
  • See full details about the UC-CoB agreement
Elsevier
Frontiers limited pilot agreement
  • Eligible journals: 20 selected journals in the humanities, social sciences and sustainability (see full details for title list)
  • Eligible articles: articles containing original research
  • Discount or funding available: APC fully covered (no cost to author)
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL, LLNL
  • Effective dates: August 1, 2023 – July 31, 2025
  • See full details about the UC-Frontiers limited pilot
IEEE

As of 1 January 2024, open access and overlength page charge support are no longer provided through the UC agreement (more info). Reading access to IEEE publications continues.

APC support applied to UC manuscripts accepted July 15, 2022 – December 31, 2023. See IEEE agreement details

International Water Association (IWA)
  • Eligible journals: All IWA journals
  • Discount or funding available: APC fully covered (no cost to author)
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses
  • Effective dates: July 15, 2023 – June 30, 2026
JMIR Publications
  • Eligible journals: All JMIR journals
  • Discount or funding available:
    • First $1,000 of APC automatically covered
    • Full APC covered for authors without funds available for open access publishing
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL, LLNL
  • Effective dates: December 23, 2019 – December 31, 2024
  • See full details about the UC-JMIR agreement
Karger  – discontinued in 2022

UCSF is no longer participating in the Karger agreement due to budget limitations. Articles prior to 2022 received 50% discount

MDPI
Microbiology Society
National Academy of Sciences - PNAS
  • Eligible journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
  • Discount or funding available:
    • Single, discounted APC of $3,225 per article
    • No separate page charges
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL, LLNL
  • Effective dates: August 1, 2021 – December 31, 2026
  • See full details about the UC-NAS agreement
Open Library of Humanities (OLH)
Oxford University Press – Nucleic Acids Research only (discontinued)

This discount program is no longer active.

  • Prior to 2023, UC authors received a 50% discount off the article processing charge for Nucleic Acids Research
PLOS
  • Eligible journals: All PLOS journals and article types
  • Discount or funding available:
    • First $1,000 of APC automatically covered
    • Full APC covered for authors without funds available for open access publishing
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL, LLNL
  • Effective dates: Manuscripts submitted April 1, 2020 – December 31, 2024
  • During submission, in the Additional Information section, select Institutional Account Program, then UCSF, then your payment method
  • See full details about the UC-PLOS agreement
Royal Society of Chemistry
  • Eligible journals: All RSC subscription journals (fully OA journals not included)
  • Discount or funding available: 15% discount
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses
  • Effective dates: Ongoing
  • See full details about the UC-RSC agreement
SAGE Publishing
  • Eligible journals: All SAGE journals, excluding a small number of society journals
  • Discount or funding available:
    • 20% discount for hybrid (subscription) journals; 15% discount for fully open access journals
    • First $1,000 of APC automatically covered
    • Full APC covered for authors without funds available for open access publishing
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL, LLNL
  • Effective dates: January 1, 2022 – December 31, 2024
  • See full details about the UC-SAGE agreement
  • SAGE's journal recommender matches on a manuscript title or keywords
SPIE
  • Eligible journals: Journal of Biomedical Optics and Neurophotonics
  • Discount or funding available: 25% discount
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses
  • Effective dates: Ongoing
  • See full details about the UC-SPIE agreement
Springer Nature
  • Eligible journals: All journals are included in the agreement except Adis’ open access and Rapid+ journals. Coverage differs for Springer and Nature journal portfolios.
  • Eligible article types: original papers, case reports, review papers, brief communications, and continuing education. See FAQ for details.
  • Discount or funding available:
    • First $1,000 of APC automatically covered
    • For Springer portfolio (includes BMC & Palgrave), full APC covered for authors without funds available for open access publishing.
    • For Nature portfolio journals, only the first $1000 of APC is covered. See FAQ for details.
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses
  • Effective dates: January 4, 2021 – December 31, 2024
  • See SN's details about the agreement, including downloadable lists of eligible journals.
  • See full details about the UC-Springer Nature agreement
  • Springer Nature's journal finder matches on a manuscript title, abstract, or keywords
Taylor & Francis – new as of Sep 19, 2024
  • Eligible journals: all Taylor & Francis hybrid and open access journals except F1000 Research, PeerJ, and Dove Medical Press titles; all Routledge Open Select journals
  • Eligible article types: all articles containing original research
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL
  • Effective dates: January 1, 2024 – December 31, 2027
  • See full details about the UC-Taylor & Francis agreement, including OA publishing for articles accepted in 2024 before the agreement was announced
  • Taylor & Francis's journal suggester matches on a manuscript abstract or keywords
University of California Press
  • Eligible journals: Collabra: Psychology and Elementa
  • Discount or funding available: APC fully covered (no cost to author)
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses
  • Effective dates: Ongoing
  • See full details about the UC Press agreement
Wiley
  • Eligible journals: All Wiley journals, including those formerly published by Hindawi (as of June 2024)
  • Eligible article types: case study, commentary, data article, education, lecture, method and protocol, perspective, practice & policy, rapid publication, research, review, short communication, technical note
  • Discount and funding available:
  • UC locations covered: All 10 campuses, LBNL
  • Effective dates: March 1, 2023 – December 31, 2026
  • See full details about the UC-Wiley agreement
  • Wiley's journal finder matches on a manuscript title or abstract 

Publication discounts for books

Luminos (UC Press)
  • UCSF supports Luminos at the Courier level
  • Discount available: 10% discount off Title Publication Fee for faculty authors
  • UC author book publication rate is $5000 for titles with up to 90,000 words and 25 images. See Author FAQ for details.
  • Authors without funds may be eligible for the Author Waiver Fund.
Open Book Publishers

Additional resources

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For a shorter link to this page, use https://tiny.ucsf.edu/publishingdiscounts 

Visit our Open Access Publishing page for more information or to connect with a scholarly communication expert.

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