Research Publishing (Open Access)

Open Access (OA) journals and hybrid journals may require an additional payment to be made to the publisher in order to have a paper made immediately open access on the date of publication. This charge known as an APC (Article Processing Charge) is usually payable when the manuscript is editorially accepted and before publication and is charged to either the author, research funder, institution or employer. 

Applications for funding for APCs can be made to the University's Research Office by completing the online request  form (Research, Enterprise and Alumni / APC Payment Application  Form). This has to be made by the corresponding author. If you are not the corresponding author and the corresponding author is employed at another University then they must apply to their home institution for funding. For more useful advice on APC's please visit the Researcher Resources page on sharepoint.

Before you decide which journal you would like your article to be published in it is useful to check if a publisher deal is available to offset the cost of APCs or if there is some other means of funding eg a charity.

In instances where the University of the Highlands and Islands already has a subscription relationship with a publisher, discounted deals to mitigate article processing charges may be available for their journal titles. Please check the list provided below for details. 

• Brill (free OA publishing): Since January 2020 UHI authors who are the 'corresponding author' have been able to publish articles in any of Brills online journals (hybrid and gold). For more information about how to publish open access with Brill and eligibility criteria please refer to the Information for Authors from the United Kingdom - Brill Transformative Agreement 2021-2022. For questions on open access publishing at Brill please contact openaccess@brill.com.

• Cambridge University Press - CUP (free OA publishing): You can publish your article Open Access (OA) - at no cost to you - in gold and hybrid journals. To be eligible, articles must: be original research – eligible article types are research articles, review articles and rapid communications as well as brief reports and case reports; have a corresponding author affiliated with a participating institution (UHI is a participating institution); be accepted for publication in a Cambridge University Press journal as listed here - click here for a list of journals covered by the agreement. and be accepted for publication between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2024. More information can be found here.

• Oxford University Press - OUP (free OA Publishing) : UHI corresponding authors can now publish research or review articles at no cost to themselves in OUP Hybrid or Fully Open journals.  This is through the Scottish Institutions (SHEDL) deal with OUP and runs 2021-2023.  A list of eligible journals can be found here.  Eligible UHI authors will see this as an APC payment option when arranging payment in OUP’s online licensing and payment system. OUP author information can be found here.

• SAGE (free OA Publishing) : UHI corresponding authors publishing an article in 900+ subscription journals in the current SAGE Premier package, as well as in the IMechE Journal Collection and the Royal Society of Medicine Collection, which offer hybrid open access publishing (SAGE Choice) can be published open access, at no charge to themselves. This is through the Scottish Institutions (SHEDL) deal with SAGE and runs 2020-2022.   As UHI is now set up as part of the agreement, SAGE will contact all eligible UHI authors to inform them of the Open Access agreement with JISC and to invite them to the SAGE Open Access Portal to take up the offer as soon as their accepted article has been received into SAGE’s Production department.  This deal only covers APC charges and other charges may still apply, please refer to individual journal submission guidelines.

• Springer (free OA publishing): UHI authors who are the 'corresponding author' can publish articles in more than 1,900 Springer open access hybrid journals at no cost to themselves. For more information about the UK Read and Publish (Springer Compact) deal view the agreement here (to view eligible journals please refer to the spreadsheet that says Hybrid journals). For the UK this 'agreement' runs until the end of December 2022.

• Taylor & Francis - T&F (free OA Publishing) :  Through an 'Agreement' between T&F and JISC,  UHI corresponding authors can publish in Taylor & Francis Open Select (hybrid) journals at no cost to themselves. Initially the deal runs across three years 2021-2023 but may be extended a further 2 years. It enables OA publishing for UK authors, up to an agreed cap, in Taylor & Francis Open Select journals, on a first come, first served basis, at no cost to the author. Only original research articles are eligible. 

• Wiley (free OA publishing): UHI authors who are the 'corresponding author' can publish articles in any of Wiley's fully gold open access or Wiley's hybrid (subscription) journals that offer OnlineOpen with no further open access costs. For more information about how to publish open access with Wiley and eligibility criteria please refer to Wiley open access agreements. For the UK this 'agreement' runs until the end of December 2023. Find a Wiley journal that matches your criteria.  
• Other Publishers : Multiple publishers are currently negotiating similar blanket agreements with the appropriate university library consortia (Jisc Collections for the UK and/or SHEDL for Scotland). We will keep this section up to date as soon as any new agreement is added to the list of the existing ones.

Don't forget to recheck this page for new deals that the University is constantly negotiating.