Open Access Publishing Fund

The purpose of this fund is to facilitate the publication of peer-reviewed articles. The Fund only covers the author processing charges (APCs) for open access publishing. Costs for reprints, colour illustration fees, non-open access page charges, translation, administrative charges and other fees are not eligible.

Deadline

Applications may be submitted at anytime throughout the year. Eligible applications will be funded on a first-come, first-served basis until the annual budget is depleted. Applicants may receive one Open Access Publication Fund grant per fiscal year (April to March).

Budget for 2024-25

ORIS has allocated $15,000 in 2024-25 to support open access fees. [GRANT CLOSED] Funds have been allocated and budget is depleted for 2024/2025.

Award value

Grants will be awarded to cover article processing charges to a maximum of $1,500 CDN each. Any amount over the $1,500 CDN will be the responsibility of the author(s).

Eligible Applicants

• The U of L author must be the submitting or corresponding author and must be an eligible U of L author as described below. If the submitting author is not an eligible U of L author at the time of submission, the fund cannot be used.
• Current University of Lethbridge faculty members, librarians, postdoctoral fellows, and undergraduate and graduate students working under the supervision of a faculty member are eligible. The article must be submitted while the author's U of L affiliation is current.

Applicants are encouraged to exhaust other funding sources that can be used to pay for open access fees before applying to the Fund. If an alternate funding source is available that permits payment of submission or publication fees, this source should be used before applying to the Fund. Open access fees are eligible expenses for CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC grants.

Award criteria

• Grant monies must be claimed by March 30, 2025. No extensions will be given.
• Grant recipients must archive their articles in the University of Lethbridge Research Repository (OPUS). To do so, please visit https://opus.uleth.ca/home and fill out the submission form. Self-archiving in OPUS is one way to meet the Open Access policies of granting agencies, such as the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications. it also ensures you are in compliance with the U of L Open Access Policy.
• Grant monies may only be used for the journal and article named in the application.

Publication criteria

Grants will only be awarded to articles that meet the following criteria:

• Are peer-reviewed,
• Are fully open access:
  • the content of the entire journal is freely available online immediately upon publication;
  • the publisher's license should have minimal restrictions on redistribution or reuse of the article so that it can be read, downloaded, copied, or distributed by anyone with an internet connection; and
  • the journal must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.

If you are unsure whether your journal is fully open access, consult the Directory of Open Access Journals.

Ineligible publications

• Hybrid journals: subscription-based publications for which authors can pay an “open choice” fee to make their individual papers freely available to any reader. Although publishers claim to redirect the funds from these article processing fees to reduce the cost of subscriptions and licenses, there is insufficient evidence that this is actually happening.
• Journals with embargoes limiting Open Access content for a specific period after publication.
• Journals which require researchers to sign over copyright to their work.