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Open Access Publishing

Introduction

RCSI has a number of agreements with publishers through IReL that allow RCSI corresponding authors to have articles made open access immediately with the publisher without payment of a further Article Processing Charge (APC). 

The tabs in this box detail the current agreements in place and information on eligibility and conditions, and an IReL spreadsheet listing all the journals involved is available: 

Journals included in RCSI agreements(in publisher order) 

  • Most of the agreements have a limit on the number of APCs that can be granted, so acceptance cannot be guaranteed 
  • Researchers are advised to include Open Access charges wherever possible in any funding applications.  Outside of these agreements, RCSI has no central fund to support paying individual Article Processing Charges (APCs).  
  • The corresponding author has to be a current staff member or student at RCSI at the time an article is accepted for publication 
  • RCSI affiliation should be used on the paper 

Gold Open Access Publishing Agreements at RCSI

Agreement period: 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2025 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with the American Chemical Society. The IReL-ACS agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost.  

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current RCSI staff member or student at the time an article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time.  

  • Eligible journals: all ACS journals 

  • Eligible article types: peer-reviewed articles 

Note: there are limitations to the number of papers under this scheme, so the allocations may be used up prior to the end of the year.

Agreement period: 1 January 2022 — 31 December 2024 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with the Annual Reviews. The IReL-Annual Reviews agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current RCSI staff member or student at the time an article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time. 

  • Eligible journals: journals in the Subscribe to Open programme 

Agreement period:  1 January 2024 – 31 December 2026 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with the BMJ.  The IReL-BMJ agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current RCSI staff member or student at the time an article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time. 

  • Eligible journals: All 34 BMJ Hybrid journals 

  • Eligible article types: original research articles (original articles reporting on primary research)

Note: RCSI does not currently subscribe to BMJ’s Institutional Fellowship, so RCSI staff and students submitting cases to BMJ Case Reports will need to pay the fees involved. 

Agreement period: 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2025 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with Cambridge University Press.  The IReL-CUP agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time the article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time.   

  • Eligible journals: Almost all CUP hybrid and fully open access journals. As detailed in this sheet, a small number of journals may either not offer OA or may require authors to transfer copyright.    

  • Eligible article types: a research, case report, brief report, review or rapid communications format article.  

Agreement period: 1 January 2024 – 31 December 2024

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with Electrochemical Society. The IReL-Electrochemical Society agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time the article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at article submission. 

  • Eligible journals:  

    • Journal of The Electrochemical Society  
    • ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology 

Note: at the time of manuscript submission, authors must select 'ECS Plus' and identify their affiliation. 

Elsevier (Cell Press)

Agreement period: 1 January 2024 – 31 December 2026

RCSI is part of a new IReL agreement with Elsevier for Cell Press titles.  The IReL-Elsevier agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost in all hybrid Cell Press journals. 

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time the article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time. 
  • Eligible journals: This agreement covers hybrid Cell Press journals only. The Elsevier (ScienceDirect) agreement covers OA for the Cell Press gold (fully open access) journals

Note: there are limitations to the number of papers under this scheme, so the allocations may be used up prior to the end of the year  

 

UPDATE 14.10.24: the Elsevier fund is now fully used up and IReL-funded Open Access will not be offered to authors for the rest of 2024. 

Corresponding authors with articles accepted will need to either find other sources of funding to pay the APC fee, or publish without a fee to journal subscribers on the publisher site while making a version of the article available through the RCSI Repository. More on Open Access Publishing options.

Agreement period: 1 January 2023 – 31 December 2025

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with Elsevier.  The IReL-Elsevier agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time the article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time. 

  • Eligible journals: Over 2,000 journals are eligible – details here. Note: journals like The Lancet and Cell Press titles are not included in the deal because the publishing costs of these journals are significantly higher than the per article publishing costs of other journals. 

Note: there are limitations to the number of papers under this scheme, so the allocations may be used up prior to the end of the year  

 

Agreement period: 1 January 2024 – 31 December 2026 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with Emerald.  The IReL-Emerald agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time the article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time 

  • Eligible journals: all Emerald Premier journals

  • Eligible article types: all peer-reviewed article content 

RCSI affiliated authors receive a 10% discount on the Article Processing Charges in all MDPI journals. This is through MDPI’s Institutional Open Access Program (IOAP) agreement, renewed annually. 

For any manuscript where at least one author is from RCSI, MDPI will grant a 10% reduction on the published APC for the journal. Only one discount is permitted per paper, and the discount cannot be combined with other available discounts. 

Agreement period: 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2026 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with Microbiology Society.  The IReL-Microbiology Society agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time the article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time 

  • Eligible journals: 

    • International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology   
    • Journal of General Virology     
    • Journal of Medical Microbiology          
    • Microbiology    
    • Microbial Genomics    
    • Access Microbiology (2516-8290) 
  • Eligible article types:  original research articles

UPDATE 28.6.24: the fund is projected to run out at the end of October 2024. Once this occurs, IReL-funded Open Access will not be offered to authors for the rest of 2024. 

Agreement period: 1 January 2022 – 31 December 2024 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with the Optica Publishing Group. The IReL-OPG agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: at the time an article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student with a participating institution. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time

  • Eligible journals for OA publishing: nine specific journals (see IReL website for details) 

    • Applied Optics 
    • Biomedical Optics Express (Open Access) 
    • Journal of the Optical Society of America A 
    • Journal of the Optical Society of America B 
    • Optica (Open Access) 
    • Optical Materials Express (Open Access) 
    • Optics Express (Open Access) 
    • Optics Letters 
    • OPG Continuum (Open Access) 
  • Eligible article types: Research Articles; Letters; Memoranda; Discussions; Mini-Reviews; Tutorials; Opinions; Negative Results; Reproducibility Studies; Comments; Replies; Engineering & Laboratory Notes 

Note: there are limitations to the number of papers under this scheme, so the allocations may be used up prior to the end of the year  

Agreement period: 1 January 2024 – 1 January 2026

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with Oxford University Press. The IReL-OUP agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: at the time of an article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student with a participating institution. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time 

  • Eligible journals: all OUP hybrid journals (subscription journals which include open access content). 

  • Eligible article types: all article types  

Note: there are limitations to the number of papers under this scheme, so the allocations may be used up prior to the end of the year 

Agreement period: 1 January 2022 – 31 December 2024 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with the Rockefeller University Press. The IReL-RUP agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: The corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time the article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time.  

  • Eligible journals for OA publishing:  

    • Journal of Cell Biology 
    • Journal of Experimental Medicine 
    • Journal of General Physiology 
  • Eligible article types: Article, Brief Definitive Report, Communication, Hypothesis, Methods and Approaches, Report, Technical Advances and Resources, and Tools. 

Agreement period: 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2026 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with the Royal Society. The IReL-Royal Society agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost 

  • Eligible authors: The corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time the article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time.  

  • Eligible journals for OA publishing:  

    • Biology Letters 
    • Interface Focus 
    • Journal of the Royal Society Interface 
    • Notes and Records of the Royal Society 
    • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 
    • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 
    • Proceedings of the Royal Society A 
    • Proceedings of the Royal Society B 
    • Open Biology 
    • Royal Society Open Science 
  • Eligible article types: Letters to the Editor, corrections, retractions are excluded  

UPDATE 17.10.24: the RSC fund is now fully used up and IReL-funded Open Access will not be offered to authors for the rest of 2024. 

Corresponding authors with articles accepted will need to either find other sources of funding to pay the APC fee, or publish without a fee to journal subscribers on the publisher site while making a version of the article available through the RCSI Repository. More on Open Access Publishing options.

Agreement period: 1 January 2022 – 31 December 2024 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with the Royal Society of Chemistry. The IReL-RSC agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: at the time an article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student with a participating institution. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time. 

  • Eligible journals for OA publishing: any of the journals RSC class as hybrid (all journals except gold open access journals and Chemistry Education Research and Practice (CERP)) 

  • Eligible article types: all research articles and review papers.  

Note: there are limitations to the number of papers under this scheme, so the allocations may be used up prior to the end of the year  

UPDATE 9.9.24: the Springer Nature fund is now fully used up and IReL-funded Open Access will not be offered to authors for the rest of 2024. 

Corresponding authors with articles accepted will need to either find other sources of funding to pay the APC fee, or publish without a fee to journal subscribers on the publisher site while making a version of the article available through the RCSI Repository. More on Open Access Publishing options.

Agreement period: 1 April 2021 – 31 December 2024

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with Springer. The IReL-Springer agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: at the time an article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student with a participating institution. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time. 

  • Eligible journals for OA publishing: more than 2,000 Springer hybrid journals. Details of the agreement including lists of eligible journals available here.  

  • Eligible article types: original paper, review paper, brief communication, continuing education.  

Note 1: there are limitations to the number of papers under this scheme, so the allocations may be used up prior to the end of the year.

Note 2: BMC journals are not included under the agreement.

UPDATE 9.9.24: the Taylor & Francis fund is now fully used up and IReL-funded Open Access will not be offered to authors for the rest of 2024. 

Corresponding authors with articles accepted will need to either find other sources of funding to pay the APC fee, or publish without a fee to subscribers on the publisher site while making a version of your article available through the RCSI Repository. More on Open Access Publishing options.

Agreement period: 1 January 2024 – 31 December 2026 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with Taylor & Francis. The IReL-T&F agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: at the time an article is accepted for publication, the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student with a participating institution. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time. 

  • Eligible journals for OA publishing:

  • Eligible article types: Article, Review, Research Article, Review Article, Report, Short Communication, Case Report, Note, Original Article, Guest Editorial. 

Note: there are limitations to the number of papers under this scheme, so the allocations may be used up prior to the end of the year  

Agreement period: 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2025 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with The Company of Biologists.  The IReL-Company of Biologists agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors: the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time the article is accepted for publication. The corresponding author must ensure their correct affiliation details are known to the publisher at this time 
  • Eligible journals
    • Development
    • Journal of Cell Science
    • Journal of Experimental Biology
    • Disease Models & Mechanisms
    • Biology Open
  • Eligible article types: original research articles

UPDATE 27.8.24 : the allocation of APCs for gold fully open access journals has been used up for 2024.

Funds remain for hybrid journals.

Corresponding authors with articles accepted once the allocation has been used up will need to either find other sources of funding to pay the APC fee, or (if publishing in a hybrid journal), publish without a fee to subscribers on the publisher site while making a version of your article available through the RCSI Repository. 

Agreement period: 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2024 

RCSI is part of an IReL agreement with Wiley.  The IReL-Wiley agreement allows eligible corresponding authors to publish open access upon publication at no extra cost. 

  • Eligible authors:

    • for hybrid journals: the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time of editorial acceptance.

    • for fully open-access journals: the corresponding author must be a current staff member or student of a participating institution at the time of article submission.

  • Eligible journals for OA publishing: all Wiley hybrid (partially open access) and Gold (fully open access) journals. A small number of Wiley subscription-only journals are excluded 

  • Eligible article types: primary research and review articles.  

Note: there are limitations to the number of papers under this scheme, so the allocations may be used up prior to the end of the year 

For the hybrid scheme, funding is allocated to articles based on the editorial acceptance date i.e. for an article to be eligible it must be accepted on a date between January and December 2024 (providing funds are still available)

For the fully open-access scheme, funding is allocated to articles based on the submission date, i.e. for an article to be eligible, it must be submitted on a date between January and December 2024 (providing funds are still available)