Open Access publishing agreements and discounts
Thanks to specific agreements stipulated with publishers, Unipd authors who wish to publish their work in Open Access can take advantage of facilitations on the payment of APCs (Article Processing Charges).
Read & Publish, Transformative and Pure Open Access agreements
A Read & Publish agreement is an institutional agreement in which the scholarly publisher receives payment for reading and payment for publishing bundled into a single contract. According to this type of contract, only authors belonging to the subscribing institutions can publish in Open Access without paying APCs.
A Read & Publish contract is a transformative agreement if it seeks to shift the payment, from a library or consortium to a publisher, away from subscription-based reading and towards open access publishing in subscription/hybrid journals committed to transitioning to fully Open Access (Gold OA) journals. Publishing in Gold OA journals may also be included. In Italy, transformative agreements have been achieved through the national negotiation by the CRUI CARE consortium.
Pure OA agreement is an institutional publishing agreement with a fully Open Access (Gold OA) scholarly publisher, which enables authors to publish without paying APCs.
Each article managed under a publishing agreement is also defined as an "OA publishing token" or "voucher". In some agreements, OA vouchers for the free publication of Open Access articles, although available in large numbers, are limited at the local/national level and are expected to run out before the end of the calendar year.
Requirements for accessing the facilitations provided by Read & Publish, Transformative and Pure OA Agreements
The corresponding author must formally belong to the University. Upon submitting the article to the journal, the corresponding author must indicate affiliation with the University of Padua. Furthermore, the use of the institutional e-mail @unipd.it is preferable.
ATTENTION:
- Only articles accepted by the publisher during the term of the contract are included in the facilitations.
- Some contracts provide for a maximum number of articles available annually for Open Access publication, at a national level. Information on the availability of vouchers or tokens (as they are defined by some publishers) is constantly updated in the boxes dedicated to individual publishers.
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
Transformative Agreements and Pure OA Publishing Agreements: No APC Fees for Authors
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 2020 - 2023
- Open access publications in hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) of the publisher, without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
Instructions for authors on the publisher's website.
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 2023-2026
- Open access publications in hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles)
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
- A limit has been set on the number of OA articles that can be published annually at the national level. This number is in line with the expected needs of the member institutions
- Eligible Articles: Article, Conference Article, Letter, Research Update, Review
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution.
Characteristics of the contract
- Extent: 2024
- Open access publications in Gold (full OA) and Hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles)
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
- Unlimited number of OA articles
- Eligible Articles: all types
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution.
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 2022
- Contract model Subscribe to Open (S2O)
The publications involved in the S2O initiative are the following:
- Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering
- Annual Review of Cancer Biology
- Annual Review of Environment and Resources
- Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics
- Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science
- Annual Review of Political Science
- Annual Review of Public Health
- Annual Review of Virology
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 20/07/2023-31/12/2025
- Open access publications in hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles), Gold journals (full Open Access), and in conference proceedings series
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution.
Characteristics of the agreement on the publisher's website
Characteristics of the contract
- University contract, part of the actions in support of Open Access implemented by the University of Padua Open Science Commission
- Extent: 01.07.2023 -
- Open Apccess publications in all the Gold OA (full Open Access) journals of the BioMed Central - BMC brand (SpringerNature)
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
- There are no limits to the number of OA articles that can be published, whose availability may depend on the depletion of the fund established by the University of Padua Open Science Commission
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution.
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 2020 - 2025
- Unlimited Read and Publish agreement includes open access publications in all the journals of the publisher, both Hybrid (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) and Gold (full Open Access), without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
Type of documents for which the concession provided by the contract is applicable.
Due to agreement renewal, articles accepted in 2023 will be able to be published retrospectively in Open Access at no cost to the University of Padua's authors.
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: under renewal
- Open access publications in hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) of the publisher, except those published by scientific societies or associated publishers, without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
Further benefits
There is also a 20% discount on the price list of Article Processing Charges (APCs) for fully open access journals.
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 2023-2027
- Open access publications in both Hybrid (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) and Gold OA (full Open Access) journals of the publisher, without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges.
- List of Hybrid journals
- List of Gold Open Access journals
- List of Cell Press journals
- The following titles are excluded:
- journals in the Clinics collection
- The Lancet collection of hybrid titles
- about 300 titles defined as "ineligible", either because they do not have an OA publication option available or because OA publication is supported by research or government bodies (i.e. SCOAP or Diamond OA journals)
- Eligible Articles:
a) Original Paper
b) Review Paper
c) Case Report
From January 1, 2025, also Short Communications will be included. - The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
- Articles already accepted in 2023 by UniPd corresponding authors may be eligible for retrospective conversion
- Green OA: Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) versions of non-OA articles can be deposited with a maximum embargo of 12 months, even in the case of journals with a longer embargo.
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution.
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 2020 - 2024
- Open access publications in both Hybrid (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) and Gold OA (full Open Access) journals of the publisher, without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 01/08/2022 - 31/07/2024
- Unlimited Read and Publish agreement includes open access publications in both Hybrid (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) and Gold OA (full Open Access) journals of the publisher, without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- Retrospective OA conversion is available until 90 days from the date of the first online publication by IEEE
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
Instructions for authors on the publisher's website.
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 01/01/2023 - 31/12/2025
- Unlimited Read and Publish agreement includes publishing in all hybrid and fully OA titles including open access publications in both Hybrid (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) and Gold OA (full Open Access) journals of the publisher, without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- Some IOP partners' Journals are not included in the Read & Publish Subscription
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
Characteristics of the contract
- Read & Publish agreement
- Extent: 2024
- Open access publications in gold, S2O (subscribe-to-open) serials and hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) of the publisher, without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges (APCs)
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (copyright is retained by the authors)
- This action is part of the supporting OA actions from the University of Padua's Open Science Commission
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 2020 - 2023; 2024-2026
- Open access publications in hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) of the publisher, without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- The type of documents for which the concession provided by the contract is applicable are: Original Paper, Review paper
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY ()
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
Instructions for authors on the publisher's website.
This is a Diamond Open Access support action.
- OBP is a book-only publisher
- Extent: 2023 - 2025
- An action to support a sustainable, community-driven Diamond scholarly. It is part of Open Access actions from the University of Padua Open Science Commission
University of Padua and PLOS are partnering to cover Open Access publishing costs for all PLOS journals also in 2024, renewal is ongoing
Characteristics of the agreement
- Unlimited full open access agreement
- Deadline: December 31, 2023. Agreement renewal is ongoing
- Corresponding authors from the University of Padua can publish without any APC cost in PLOS Biology, PLOS Climate, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Digital Health, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Global Public Health, PLOS Medicine, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PLOS ONE, PLOS Pathogens, PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, PLOS Water. New and upcoming titles PLOS Complex Systems and PLOS Mental Health are included!
- This action is part of the supporting OA actions from the University of Padua's Open Science Commission
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 2022 - 2024
- Open access publications in hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles), without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
From December 2nd 2023, the maximum number of Open Access articles foreseen by the national Springer contract has been reached. An additional package of available OA Springer articles is going to be purchased via the CRUI CARE consortium. In case of publishing OA or publishing flow issues by the publisher, please report to us via the Library Helpline.
Characteristics of the contract:
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 2020 - 2024
- Open access publications in hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) of the Springer publishing group (comprised in the SpringerLink platform), without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
- The agreement does NOT include Nature portfolio journals
- As for BioMed Central - BMC brand (full Open Access), total coverage of costs is foreseen through a University contract: see the conditions in the specific space above
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount
Affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email and/or IP address and/or name of the institution
Instructions for authors on the publisher's website.
Characteristics of the contract:
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
- Extent: 03/2021 - 2023
- Open access publications in hybrid journals (i.e. journals that may contain both open access and closed access articles) of the Wiley publishing group contained in the Wiley Online Library platform and publications in journals converted in 2022 into Gold OA, without the need for any payment of OA article publishing charges
- The contract covers only open access fees; other expenses (colour pages, extra length, etc.) are not included.
- Publication license suggested: CC BY (Copyright remains with the author)
Essential conditions to take advantage of the discount:
affiliation of the corresponding author identifiable by the publisher through institutional email or name of the institution
Publishers who provide other kinds of facilitation
2023- subscription is under renewal. Currently APCs discount is not available.
Characteristics of the contract
- Italian consortium contract (CARE - CRUI)
This membership allows authors to get a 10% discount on MDPI Open Access Article Processing Charges or Book Processing Charges
MDPI Journals in DOAJ - Directory of OA JournalsIn November 2023, MDPI Author Services is offering UniPd authors a special 25% discount on language editing services. Language editing services can be used to revise manuscripts before submission or during the peer review process in response to reviewers' comments. The discount will be applied automatically when the author uses their institutional email address. Authors can submit their work here.
SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) is a financing model for publication costs in Particle Physics journals. It is an international project, coordinated by CERN in Geneva since 2014, aimed at supporting the costs of Open Access publication.
The University of Padua adheres to the SCOAP3 project, therefore UniPd authors do not sustain any expenses to publish in OA in the following journals:
- Acta Physica Polonica B (APPB). Ed. Jagiellonian University in cooperation with the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Advances in High Energy Physics (AHEP). Ed. Indawi
- Chinese Physics C (CPC). Ed. IOP
- The European Physical Journal C (EPJC). Ed. Springer
- The Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP). Ed. Springer
- Nuclear Physics B (NPB). Ed. Elsevier
- Physics Letters B (PLB). Ed. Elsevier
- Physical Review C (PRC). Ed.APS Physics - Since 2018
- Physical Review D (PRD). Ed.APS Physics - Since 2018
- Physical Review Letters (PRL). Ed.APS Physics - Since 2018
- Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP). Ed.Oxford University Press in cooperation with JPS The Physical Society of Japan
Publication license: CC BY and the authors maintain the copyright on the work.
The University Library Centre (ULC) has signed up for a membership that allows UniPd authors who publish Open Access with Taylor & Francis to enjoy a 10% discount on the cost of Article Processing Charges (APC).
Upon acceptance of the article by the publisher, the corresponding authors are informed of this possibility and how to access it.
The facilities include open access publications in Gold OA and hybrid journals (i.e. journals that can contain both open access and closed access articles). For the latter, the 10% discount refers to the cost of the APCs, not traditional publishing costs.
Library Helpline
If you need any further information, please contact the Library Helpline. Select:
- "Supporto alla pubblicazione accademica" [Scholarly publishing support]
- "Consulenza tematiche diritto d’autore" [Copyright support]
- "Supporto Open Science (Open Access, Open Data)" [Open Science support]