While it is usually possible to make your work openly available at no cost, some publishers require the payment of an article processing charge (APC). This payment means that your work will be open immediately upon publication, via the publisher's website.
Some journals are fully open access, meaning that you will always have to pay an APC to publish in them. Other publishers operate a 'hybrid' model which means you can choose to publish either in the traditional manner where the work will sit behind a paywall, or you can pay to make your article freely accessible. APCs usually range between £800 and £2000, though they can be higher or lower. The average charge has been estimated by the RCUK to be £1727 (exc. VAT).
This page provides information on the funding options available to cover these charges and will help you determine whether you are eligible for funding support. If you have any queries about your eligibility please contact the Open Access Team at openaccess@bath.ac.uk.
Before making a request, please look over the information provided on the rest of this page regarding funding eligibility as well as details about the publisher-specific agreements we have signed up to. Taking advantage of these deals may mean we get significant reduction in the price of your APC.
If you have any questions regarding funding options or eligibility, then please contact openaccess@bath.ac.uk.
If you have been funded by a Research Council then you may be able to access our UKRI Open Access block grant. Whilst we encourage authors to self-archive their author accepted manuscript in Pure where possible, we understand that sometimes it is necessary for an OA fee to be paid so the article is open immediately.
We have recently changed how we allocate the UKRI block grant so please read the below information as it may affect whether we can support your APC.
To be eligible to use the fund:
Publishers taking a sustainable and affordable approach to the transition to OA by reducing the cost of publishing in hybrid journals via offsetting deals and membership schemes include: American Chemical Society, Royal Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Physics, Sage, Springer Nature (Springer Compact titles only), Taylor & Francis, Wiley, and Oxford University Press.
Further requirements:
Please note: The fund will cover up to three APCs per author/grant per annual block grant allocation (01 April – 31 March). Page/colour/other mandatory costs can also be paid under UKRI policy. To maximise fund use for APCs, payment of these costs will be capped at £750 and will only be made to publishers that are fully OA or provide a Green OA option that complies with the UKRI policy.
To make a formal request for support from this fund, please fill out our APC request form.
If you are acknowledging funding from one of the Charity Open Access Fund (COAF) partners then you may be eligible for support from our COAF fund. PLEASE NOTE: our COAF fund for this funding period has now been used up.
the publisher has agreed to COAF's publisher requirements (a requirement since 1 April 2017)
Wellcome Trust also mandates that monographs and book chapters be made open access. It has a separate funding mechanism to manage payment of these costs for its funded researchers. Please email openaccess@wellcome.ac.uk for more information.
Please note: funding is allocated on a first-come first-served basis so we cannot guarantee that funds will always be available. We therefore advise that, before committing to paying an APC, authors get in touch with the Open Access Team to find out if funding is available.
To make a formal request for support from this fund, please fill out our APC request form. The fund has now been fully spent. If you need help with funding an open access payment you should contact your relevant research funder(s) directly. The email addresses are:
APCs for European Research Council-funded works can be claimed as direct eligible costs from your grant if publication is expected during the period of the grant. For more information, read the ERC guidelines.
APCs can be reimbursed by Horizon 2020 if they occur during the duration of the grant. Costs incurred once a project is completed cannot be refunded from that project's budget. For more information, visit the Horizon 2020 website or speak to a member of the Open Access Team.
The Foundation is willing to pay reasonable publisher fees in order to make publications openly available immediately via a CC-BY 4.0 licence. Researchers should not pay these fees out of their budget or seek reimbursement from the Foundation. They should use Chronos, a new service developed by the foundation, to manage the payment of open access fees.
The Society will not provide any additional funding to support open access costs. If your grant finishes with an underspend they are happy to consider requests for it to be used for APCs.
If you aren't funded by a Research Council, COAF partner, or other funding body which may be able to pay for your open 
access fee, then you may have the option of using the Bath Open Access Fund.
The Library’s Open Access Team can advise on whether your journal is eligible (email details to openaccess@bath.ac.uk).
The Bath Open Access Fund has been exhausted for 2019/20. We are no longer accepting requests for this fund.
Please note: funding is allocated on a first-come first-served basis so we cannot guarantee that funds will always be available. Since many journals require you to agree to the payment when you submit your article, it is a good idea to ensure you have funding before you submit your article to the publisher. We therefore advise that you get confirmation from the Open Access Team before committing to paying an APC.
If your article does not meet the criteria for funding support for paid open access, there are still a number of things that you can do:
The University of Bath has signed up to a number of publisher agreements which may mean the cost of the APC is reduced or waived. If you are considering publishing with one of the below publishers, please read about what agreement we have in place and whether you might be able to benefit from it. If in doubt, please contact openaccess@bath.ac.uk for further information.