Guides: Library Research Support: Open Research: Paying for Open Access

Paying for Open Access (Journal Articles)

Funding available to cover open access publication costs

Authors seeking to publish open access in a journal or conference proceeding may be presented with a charge, usually in the form of an Article Processing Charge (APC), levied by a publisher in order to cover their costs for publication.

The guide outlines the different mechanisms available to authors at Durham, which may be able to cover the costs of open access publication where these apply.

It is important to note that if you would like an APC to be paid centrally from the UKRI or Wellcome Open Access block grants you must contact the Open Access Team at submission. If this is not done, we cannot guarantee that funds will be available for you at acceptance.

Key principles for authors

There remain several key principles to follow for all Durham Authors:

Authors should be comfortable that any costs indicated by the journal or publisher are reasonable for the services being provided. If not, you should consider whether publication in another venue is more appropriate.
- APCs vary significantly, but the average APC we paid in 2024-25 was £2,560.71 (inc VAT), and ranging in price from £925.96 to £6,108.00.
You should be certain that the journal is a trusted and credible research publisher, and that the journal of publication is not a predatory journal.
- Further information can be found on our guide on where to publish.
In line with the University's Research Integrity Policy 10.1.(e), all researchers should "appropriately acknowledge anyone who has directly or indirectly assisted their work. This includes collaborators, funders and participants."
- Guidance on authorship and acknowledgement can be found on our guide here.
In line with the University's Research Integrity Policy 10.1.(f), all researchers should "adhere to any conditions set by funding or other bodies regarding the publication of data or findings, including the timing and manner of publication (e.g. open access)."
In line with the University's Open Access Policy 4.2.(iv), ensuring before submitting to a publisher that "the means to pay any resulting APCs charged by a journal are in place" and "communicating to the required persons at the earliest opportunity, if funding is required for the payment of an APC, where this may be charged to any external or centrally held funding."

UKRI Open Access Block Award

Durham University receives an Open Access Block Award from UKRI to support compliance with its open access policy for research articles. The use of this block grant is permitted to cover a range of costs, but it is important to note that some costs are no longer permitted as eligible costs chargeable to this block award.

For the period April 1st 2025 to March 31st 2026, Durham University has received an award of £559,576.91.

Conditions of use

This funding may be used where:

An article is required to acknowledge funding from UKRI or any of its Research Councils
AND...
The required acknowledgement of that funding has been included in the article in line with the expectations of the funder.
AND...
One of the following statements is true:
- The corresponding author (who is acknowledging the Research Council funding) on the research article is affiliated with the University of Durham, OR;
- The Principal investigator (PI) of the acknowledged grant is affiliated with the University of Durham.

We have set out below the detail of what can and cannot be charged to the UKRI block award, for information. Please contact openaccess.publishing@durham.ac.uk to make a funding request or if you are unsure if any open access costs can be covered by an existing central funding stream. Please note that an invoice must not be raised until the Open Access Team confirms that funds are committed for you - unless you have other means to make the payment yourself.

Eligible Costs

This following are costs authors may face which we are able to charge to the UKRI Open Access Block Award, whilst funds remain:

Fully Open Access Journals and Platforms

Article Processing Charges (APCs) (and similar charges under other funding models) for publication in a fully open access journal which is registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and which do not share an editorial board, aims and scope, or title with a parent hybrid/subscription title (see section UKRI and “mirror journals”).
Submission fees for articles in fully open access journals registered in the DOAJ, and other open access platforms (see UKRI OA FAQ H12 "Can the block grant be used for journal submission fees?") where publication will otherwise be in compliance with UKRI Open Access Policy.
APCs or other charges which support open access publication in fully open access platforms, other than open access journals mentioned above.
Find out how to request funds from the Block Grant Award here.

Hybrid Open Access Journals

The UKRI Open Access Block Award can NOT be used to cover the cost of APCs in hybrid journals, except in the following cases:

APCs for articles published in Hybrid Journals which are covered by a JISC-approved transitional agreement to which Durham University is a party to, and where the article is covered by that agreement.
- In these instances, the APC will usually be automatically covered by the agreement and there will be no APC payable by the author or the University.
APCs for articles published in Hybrid Journals, where the journal is covered by a JISC-approved transitional agreement, but where the APC for a specific article is not covered by that agreement because:
- The UKRI-funded author is not the corresponding author on the article (see UKRI OA FAQ H8 "Can UKRI open access funds be used to pay an article processing charge to a hybrid journal that is part of a transitional agreement if the UKRI-funded author is not the corresponding author and so not eligible to use the transitional agreement?")
- The article is in a journal covered by a JISC-approved transitional agreement, but the agreement has a publishing allocation cap and the cap has been reached (see UKRI OA FAQ H7 "Can UKRI open access funds be used to pay an article processing charge to a hybrid journal that is part of an approved transitional agreement with a publishing allocation cap and the cap has been reached?")

Costs which can no longer be charged to the UKRI Open Access Block Award

The following costs can no longer be charged to the UKRI Open Access Block Award.

APCs or other open access costs for publication in any hybrid journal, except where covered in exceptions listed above as eligible costs.
Any other non-open access charges associated with publication, including page and colour charges, and non-open access publication charges and fees.
APCs charged by 'mirror journals'.

UKRI and “mirror journals”

UKRI has recently clarified its position on 'mirror journals' - fully open access journals that closely replicate an existing subscription or hybrid journal. These journals usually share the same editorial board, aims, scope, and peer review standards as their “parent” journal, but operate under a different publishing model. They may also be identifiable by an “X” suffix in the title.

As a result, UKRI funds cannot be used to pay open access charges for articles in mirror journals. Authors should carefully check whether a chosen journal is a mirror journal before planning to use UKRI funds.(See UKRI open access policy: frequently asked questions – UKRI – "Can UKRI funds be used to pay for open access costs to publish in mirror journals?")

We are seeking further clarification from UKRI about the criteria used to define a mirror journal and will share updated guidance as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, please contact the Library’s Open Access team if you are considering submitting to a journal that may fall into this category.

Funding from the UKRI Open Access Block Award is used to cover the 'publish' element of some publisher agreements, where these are eligible costs. These allow us to Durham authors to publish open access in thousands of journals at no additional cost at the point of publication.

Wellcome Trust Open Access Block Award

The Library receives a small Block Grant Award from the Wellcome Trust. This award is to fund open access publishing costs for original research papers which have been supported in whole or in part by Wellcome, and published in line with their Open Access policy.

Full guidance on funding is available via Wellcome here.

Conditions of use

This funding may be used where:

An article which is required to acknowledge funding from the Wellcome Trust, and where that required acknowledgement of that funding has been included in the article
AND...
The Principal investigator (PI) of the acknowledged grant is affiliated with the University of Durham.

We have set out below the detail of what can and cannot be charged to the Wellcome Trust block award, for information. Please contact openaccess.publishing@durham.ac.uk to make a funding request or if you are unsure if any open access costs can be covered by an existing central funding stream.

Eligible Costs

This following are costs authors may face which we are able to charge to the Wellcome Trust Open Access Block Award:

Fully Open Access Journals and Platforms

Article Processing Charges (APCs) (and similar charges under other funding models) for publication in a fully open access journal which is registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
APCs or other charges which support open access publication in fully open access platforms, other than open access journals mentioned above.
APCs for research/study protocols, systematic reviews, scoping reviews and meta-analyses published in fully open access journals and platforms.

Costs which can not be charged to the Wellcome Trust Open Access Block Award

The following costs can no longer be charged to the UKRI Open Access Block Award.

APCs or other open access costs for publication in any hybrid journal.
Any other non-open access charges associated with publication, including page and colour charges, and non-open access publication charges and fees.

In addition, open access access fees associated with monographs, book chapters and edited collections can not be charged to the Wellcome Trust Open Access Block Award. These must instead be requested directly from the Trust, as detailed on the policy guidance pages.

Transitional Agreements and other Publisher deals

We have leveraged existing funding streams to support open access publication through a range of publisher agreements, many negotiated at a national level through cooperation with other Research Organisations across the sector.

These include Transitional Agreements (such as with Springer, Elsevier and the Cambridge and Oxford University Presses), agreements with native open access publishers (such as Public Library of Science, Open Library of Humanities and Frontiers) and Compliant Green agreements (such as with AAAS).

They are aimed to support Durham authors to make their research open access immediately upon publication, whilst constraining the costs of subscription access and publication and ensuring a sustainable income stream for academic publishers.

Further details of existing publisher agreements can be found on our Publisher Agreements Guide.

What are Transitional Agreements?

A transitional agreement is a purchase model for access to the journal content of a publisher, which is intended to convert subscription expenditure to support immediate open access publishing of research output in those journals covered by the deal, in addition to continued access to non-open access content that remains behind a paywall.

Transitional Agreements can take several forms, including:

Read and Publish: Institutions pay one fee to read paywalled content and to enable their authors to publish OA in a journal or group of journals. Typically, the "read" element of the fee is based on current subscription spend and the "publish" element of the fee is based on recent APC spend or recent published output.
- Examples: Springer Compact, Wiley Read and Publish Agreement
Publish and Read: All institutions pay an agreed amount for papers published by affiliated authors and receive read access to the publisher's content for no extra cost. The fee can be fixed based on historic output multiplied by a notional APC or calculated over the agreement period by multiplying actual articles published by the notional APC.
- Examples: PNAS Publish and Read Agreement, Wiley and Projeckt DEAL (Germany)
Subscribe to Open: Converts subscription access journals to OA using existing library subscription income, with no fees for publishing.
- Examples: Annual Reviews S2O, Berghan Open Anthro

Institutional Open Access Fund

The University has established an Open Access Fund to provide limited support for authors in the publication of their journal articles in fully open access titles. The establishment of this fund provides an additional option for Durham University authors to consider when thinking about which journals to submit to and how they will ensure their articles are openly accessible. Prior to applying for funding from the Institutional Open Access Fund, it is worth checking whether you can access other open access options.

These are:

UKRI/Wellcome Trust Block Grants. The University Library manages the block grants provided by UKRI and Wellcome to cover the costs of “gold” open access for eligible articles. You may also have a grant from another funder which would also cover the cost of an Article Processing Charge (APC).
Transitional Agreements. We have signed up to a number of Transitional Agreements with publishers which can cover “gold” open access costs for many of our authors.
Diamond Open Access journals. Diamond Open Access refers to a scholarly publication model in which journals and platforms do not charge fees to either authors or readers. If you are still considering where to publish you may find a relevant diamond open access journal via an index such as the Directory of Open Access Journals.
Rights Retention. Rights Retention supports authors retaining sufficient rights in their own accepted manuscripts to share them via our institutional repository, immediately upon publication, under an open licence.
Publisher policies on self-archiving. Where an author has not retained sufficient rights in their own work to share upon their terms, many publishers have standard policies allowing authors to deposit their accepted manuscript with an institutional repository under certain criteria (e.g. they may specify an embargo period). You can investigate the policy of your publisher to see if it meets your, or your funder’s, requirements for open access.

2. Eligible authors

To be eligible to request that an APC is paid from the Institutional Open Access Fund, the requesting author must be:

Current Durham University staff or PGR student using their Durham University affiliation.
Unable to charge the cost to another funding stream (either of their own or of their co-authors).

The fund is not open to honorary or visiting staff. Emeritus staff should contact openaccess.publishing@durham.ac.uk for further guidance.

3. Eligible article types

The institutional fund is available for:

Original research or review papers (not including book reviews) to be published in a fully open access journal, indexed in Directory of Open Access Journals.

4. Eligible licences

Licence options are limited and:

APCs will only be paid for from the Institutional Open Access Fund where the article will be published with a CC BY, CC BY-ND or CC BY-SA licence. One of these licences must be in place from the point of first publication.

5. Eligible individual APC amounts

The institutional fund is limited and to ensure that as many authors as possible can benefit from it, the amount that will be paid towards an individual APC is capped at:

A maximum APC of £5000, including VAT (approximately £4150 excluding VAT).

Where the APC charged by your chosen journal/publisher exceeds the amount above, it may be possible for part of the fee to be covered by the Institutional Fund and for the remainder to be covered by other means found by the author(s). Please contact openaccess.publishing@durham.ac.uk for further information

Applying to the Institutional Open Access Fund

Funding requests should be made at the point of submission so that fund can be committed for you.

Important to note:

Payment for an APC can only be guaranteed where funding has been confirmed by the Research Support Team prior to a licence agreement being signed. As the fund is finite and certain eligibility criteria need to be met, if funds are not committed for you prior to you requesting open access/an invoice from a publisher we may not be in a position to pay for gold open access on your behalf.
Following publication, checks will be made to ensure that the article has been published in accordance with the eligibility criteria for the fund.
The fund cannot be used to pay for other publication charges such as colour charges or additional page charges.
The fund cannot be used to convert articles which have already been published behind a paywall (retrospective open access).

How to request funds from the Institutional Open Access Fund:

1. Complete this online form (accessible with your Durham University email address).

The Research Support Team will respond to your request via your institutional email address. For further support with the completion of the form, or for any enquiries about the fund please email openaccess.publishing@durham.ac.uk

Other Information:

Academic Governance Group

The Academic Governance Group is a sub-group of University Research Management Committee. Its role is to provide academic oversight of the management of the agreed Institutional Open Access funding stream. It will ensure that processes for providing access to funding to support open access publication for Durham University research take into account faculty research strategies and outcomes, as well as make full consideration of issues of equality and diversity in access to support at all career stages.

FAQs

1. Where an APC is in excess of set limits, how will this be supported by the Institutional Open Access Fund? Where an APC is above this level, the cost up to the maximum level as above can be covered by the institutional fund, with additional costs needing to be covered by an author or their department.

2. Do Honorary or Visiting staff have access to the Institutional Open Access fund? No. If they are co-authoring a paper with another member of the University (a member of staff with a contract of employment, or a research student for example) then the request should be submitted by them.

3. Do Emeritus staff have access to the Institutional Open Access fund? As for Honorary and Visiting staff, the expectation is that usually a publication which may be eligible for funding would be co-authored with a member of the University, and any request should be submitted through them. However, we have been advised that in certain instances there may be cases where a further review is required. In these instances, additional information may be requested from the author, and requests may be submitted to the Academic Governance Group for review.

4. Where a PGR author has left the University (and is the sole Durham author on the paper) can funding be requested from the Institutional Open Access Fund or via Transitional Publisher Agreements to help cover costs of open access publication supported by the University? We are unable to cover the costs of articles from the institutional fund. Whether an article can be covered by a Transitional Agreement by a publisher will be determined by the agreement with that publisher, and whether a Durham affiliation has been used by the author. Please contact openaccess.publishing@durham.ac.uk to discuss what support might be available.