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APC discounts

Publishing Discounts

The University of Toronto Libraries (UTL) offers discounts to eligible University of Toronto authors who are paying article processing charges (APCs) to make their research openly available. These discounts help to reduce the financial obligations on researchers.

Some of these discounts are negotiated into institutional licenses with the publisher or through paid memberships. For more information on UTL's ongoing work in support of initiatives that work towards immediate and barrier-free access to research, visit UTL Publisher Relationships.

NOTE: If you have a @utoronto or @mail.utoronto address it is always preferable that you use this when submitting your work for publication as many platforms automatically identify your affiliation with U of T this way. If you do not have a U of T address but are an affiliate of U of T this does not preclude you, but please be aware that there may potentially be delays in the process.

Questions? Contact the Scholarly Communications & Copyright Office

Fully-Funded APCs 

Discounted APCs

Fully-Funded APCs

Cambridge University Press

As of January 1, 2022, University of Toronto-affiliated researchers are eligible for unlimited, no-cost OA publishing in Cambridge University Press hybrid or Gold OA journals. 

In order to be eligible for no-cost OA publication under this Read & Publish agreement via CRKN: 

  • The corresponding author must be affiliated with U of T
  • The article must be accepted for publication in a CUP hybrid or Gold OA journal
  • The article must be accepted for publication within the term of the agreement (2022-2024)
  • The article must be one of five research article types, as defined by CUP (research, reviews, rapid communications, brief reports, case reports)

Cambridge has published a Guide to Publishing OA under a Read & Publish Agreement

Institute of Physics Publishing

This agreement is retroactive to December 15, 2021 and ends on December 15, 2024.

Who is covered?  

Corresponding authors affiliated with CRKN institutions participating in the CRKN-IOPP agreement (i.e., all affiliated U of T authors) can publish an unlimited number of their articles under an open access license in most IOPP hybrid and gold journals at no charge to the author for the duration of the agreement.

What journals are eligible? 

A list of eligible titles is available in the agreement document - See 'Eligible Publishing Titles' (Schedule 1, Section 3, p. 6).

How do I apply this deal? 

The APC discount is applied when an author indicates their affiliation at the point of submission. 

Karger Publishers

The University of Toronto has entered into an open access agreement with Karger Publishers, that covers 100% of the cost of article processing charges. This agreement was extended for another year and is now in place until December 31, 2022. 

Who is covered?  Corresponding authors who are affiliated with the University of Toronto. This includes graduate students.  

What journals are eligible?  All Karger journals, including Karger’s Open Access and hybrid journals (subscription journals with an Open Access option). 

How do I apply this deal?  

  • When submitting a manucript for publication, authors will be presented with a screen labeled “Open Access Agreements.” Under the “Eligibility Declaration” select “Eligible” and type “University of Toronto” in the free text box that asks for the name of your institution.
  • Once the paper is accepted for publication, the APC cost should be covered.  All entries will be checked and verified upon acceptance of the paper. 
  • Authors who do not wish to publish open access should select the “opt-out despite being eligible option.”  

PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, & PLOS Sustainability and Transformation

The University of Toronto initially entered into an open access agreement (the Community Action Publishing Agreement [CAP]) with the Public Library of Science (PLOS) through the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN). This agreement was for PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine and was set for expiry on December 31, 2023. A new PLOS agreement with the Centre for Research Libraries was negotiated in 2021 and goes into effect Janurary 1, 2022 (see below for instructions regarding additional PLOS journals included in the new deal). This has extended the timeline until December 31, 2024 and now includes the newly launched journal, PLOS Sustainability and Transformation. 

Who is covered? 

  • Corresponding authors who are affiliated with U of T are eligible for a 100% coverage of article processing fees. 
  • If you are a co-author on a manuscript and the corresponding author is not from an institution that is a member, affiliated U of T authors are eligible for a 25% discount on the article processing fees (referred to as “non-member fees” by PLOS). This discount cannot be stacked.  
  • This includes graduate students. 

What journals are eligible?  PLOS Medicine, PLOS Biology the newly launched PLOS Sustainability and Transformation. See the section below for instructions speicific to PLOS ONE and all other PLOS journals.

How do I apply this deal? 

  • Upon submitting your manuscript to either PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, or PLOS Sustaiability and Transformation be sure to list the "University of Toronto" as your institutional affiliation in the submission system, Editorial Manager.  
  • If your work is accepted for publication, PLOS will check this field and ensure that your benefits are applied to any publication fees.  
  • After submission, corresponding authors receive an estimate from PLOS’ billing system, Copyright Clearance Center, indicating the expected publication fees based on the current membership status of each author. If any author’s institution joins PLOS' journal communities before your work is accepted, your actual publication fee could be less. Results of any application to the PLOS Publication Fee Assistance program will not be shown in this estimate.

Step by step:

  1. Login to the Editorial Manager as an author.
  2. Complete your submission.
  3. You will see a “Fee Quote” page summarizing what you will pay if accepted.
  4. At time of acceptance, author will be prompted via the RightsLink platform to complete his acceptance.
  5. The library will receive an “APC support” request to approve.

Visit PLOS’ Publishing FAQs for more information or contact scholarly.communications@library.utoronto.ca for further assistance.

All Other PLOS Journals

Negotiated by the Centre for Research Libraries (CRL) U of T has entered into a new agreement with PLOS that allows U of T authors full coverage of article processing fees within all PLOS journals. This deal expires December 31, 2024.

Who is covered?

  • Corresponding authors who are affiliated with U of T are eligible for a 100% coverage of article processing fees.
  • This includes graduate students. 

What journals are eligible?

All PLOS journals (including PLOS ONE) excepting PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine, or PLOS Sustainability and Development. For instructions on how to apply the discount for these 3 journals, please see the section above.

How do I apply this deal?

When in the Editorial Manager submission system for any of the following journals: PLOS ONE, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Pathogens, PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PLOS Genetics, PLOS Digital Health, PLOS Water, PLOS Climate, PLOS Global Public Health:

  1. Login as an author.
  2. Indicate what kind of manuscript you’re submitting. Progress-bar navigation will appear that allows you to jump to any part of the submission process.
  3. Jump to “Additional Information” in the navigation bar →
  4. Scroll to “Publication Fees” →
  5. Answer with 2nd Radio Button: My institution will full or partially pay →
  6. Select institution name from drop down

SAGE Choice Journals 

The University of Toronto has entered into an open access agreement with SAGE Publishing through the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN). This agreement is in place until December 31, 2023.  

Who is covered?  

  • Corresponding authors who are affiliated with U of T are eligible for a 100% coverage of article processing fees. This includes graduate students.  

What journals are eligible?  SAGE Choice journals, including the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) and Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) journals. Some exclusions apply. 

How do I apply this deal?  

  • This process is done automatically via the SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP) when corresponding authors identify their affiliation to the University of Toronto. 
  • SOAP is a dashboard for authors to submit their article, select a copyright license, and view article status.  
  • A CC-BY Creative Commons license will be applied to open access publications unless a different license is requested by the author. 

Thieme Chemistry SynOpen

15 APC waivers are available for U of T authors publishing in Thieme's Chemistry SynOpen journal. 

Who is covered?  Corresponding authors who are affiliated with the University of Toronto. This includes graduate students.  

What journals are eligible?  This voucher is only available for Thieme's Chemistry SynOpen journal

How do I apply this deal?  Corresponding authors can:

  • Contact the Thieme Chemisty SynOpen journal's Editorial Office directly ahead of submitting your article for publication at: synlett_synthesis@thieme.de; or
  • Submit article, and the Editorial Office will check to see if APC vouchers are available at the institution.  Use of vouchers is being tracked manually on an institutional level by the Editorial Office.

 

Discounted APCs 

American Chemical Society (ACS)

University of Toronto authors are eligible for a $250 USD discount off the APC price. This discount will be automatically applied once a researcher selects their institutional affiliation as part of the submission process. 

Once an invoice is paid, ACS is unable to offer refunds. Please apply applicable discounts before paying. 

American Society of Plant Biologists

Immediate Open Access can be purchased for $950 USD. However, all articles become open access after 12 months. More information is available here.

BioMed Central (BMC)

University of Toronto authors are eligible for a 15% discount on APCs for articles published in BioMed Central, SpringerOpen, and BMC Chemistry (formerly known as Chemistry Central) journals. This agreement is in place until April 30, 2022.  

Once an invoice is paid, BMC is unable to offer refunds. Please apply applicable discounts before paying. 

BMC Chemistry (Formerly Chemistry Central)

University of Toronto authors are eligible for a 15% discount on APCs for articles published in BMC Chemistry (formerly known as Chemistry Central) journals. This agreement is in place until April 30, 2022.  

Once an invoice is paid, BMC is unable to offer refunds. Please apply applicable discounts before paying. 

BMJ Open Access Programme

The University of Toronto is member of BMJ’s Open Access Programme, which grants corresponding authors a 15% discount off APCs.

How: This discount is automatically applied to the cost of the APC upon acceptance of your article. Make sure to select the University of Toronto as your affiliated institution upon submission of your manuscript in BMJ's ScholarOne system. 

 

Canadian Science Publishing

Canadian Science Publishing (CSP) offers a 25% discount to University of Toronto authors who choose to publish Open Access via the OpenArticle option. Original APCs of $3000 are reduced to $1500. For more information, contact pubs@cdnsciencepub.com or visit this link.

Elsevier

Corresponding authors who are affiliated with the University of Toronto are eligible for a 20% discount to publish in Elsevier's hybrid and gold Open Access journals through the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN). This includes graduate students. This agreement is in place until December 31, 2023.

Exlusions: Cell Press, Lancet, and some other society owned journals are not eligible for the discount

How: Upon final acceptance of an article for publication, the corresponding author receives an e-mail with a link to choose publishing options and will be asked to choose their institutional affiliation from an auto-complete form. Please select the University of Toronto at this point. 

  • The author is presented with text which states that, as an author affiliated with a CRKN institution, they will receive a 20% discount on the APC.
  • Once the author has chosen a license (CC BY or CC BY NC ND) and completed the remainder of the acceptance process, CRKN is provided with a notification of validation within 48 hours.
  • Upon validation by CRKN, the author (or whomever they have designated as receiver of the invoice) will receive the invoice with the discount included.

Journal of Experimental Botany

A 100% reduction in fees is available to University of Toronto researchers. This discount is applied automatically to your manuscript upon submission.

Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)

U of T authors are eligible to receive 10% off APCs in MDPI journals. If you are submitting your manuscript using your University of Toronto email address then this discount will be applied automatically, otherwise authors will be prompted in the last step of submission to select the name of their institution from a drop-down menu.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Science

A discounted open access fee of $4,975 USD for a CC BY-NC-ND license is available to U of T researchers (compared to the normal fee of $5,475). This discount is applied automatically to your manuscript upon submission. For more information, visit the PNAS Author Center webpage. 

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)

U of T authors are eligible for a 15% discount when publishing in RSC hybrid journals. 

The APC discount will be applied automatically during the publishing process in the steps below: 

  • Author submits article to a hybrid RSC journal using the regular process
  • On acceptance of the manuscript, authors will receive an email with a link to the RSC licensing system
  • The system will automatically deduce author affiliation based on the domain of the email address used in submission (make sure to use your UofT email)
  • The author can select the standard (subscription) license, or opt for an open access license (author have the choice of two Creative Commons licenses, CC-BY or CC-BY-NC)

SAGE Gold Open Access Journals

University of Toronto authors, including graduate students, are eligible for a 40% discount to publish in SAGE’s gold open access journals. This agreement is in place until December 31, 2023.

  •  Click here to see the title list of participating gold journals
  • This discount will be applied automatically via the SAGE Open Access Portal (SOAP) when corresponding authors identify their affiliation to the University of Toronto. For more information about this process, visit the CRKN-Negotiated APC Discounts webpage. 
  • Where an author is eligible for more than one discount for gold journals, discounts cannot be combined but the highest discount available to the author will be applied to the APC

SPIE

U of T authors receive a 25% discount on APC costs as part of SPIE Digital Library Subscription. This discount is applied automatically once a paper is accepted for publication. This discount applies to any paper that has at least one author (primary or secondary) who belongs to a subscribing institution. This discount only applies to fully open access journals. For more information, visit the SPIE Journals Open Access webpage. 

SpringerOpen

University of Toronto authors are eligible for a 15% discount on APCs for articles published in SpringerOpen journals. This agreement is in place until April 30, 2022. 

Once an invoice is paid, SpringerOpen is unable to offer refunds. Please apply applicable discounts before paying. 

Taylor and Francis Open Select Journals

University of Toronto authors are eligible for a 25% discount on APCs as part of T&F's agreement with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN). This discount applies only to Open Select Journals. 

To take advantage of the discount on T&F Open Select journals, an author can submit an article and choose the open access publishing option. When the APC is generated, authors can select their institution from the drop-down menu, and the discount will be automatically applied. The author can select a Creative Commons license to sign once they accept the quote. For more information about the application of this discount, visit the CRKN-Negotiated APC Discounts webpage. 

 

    Last updated: March 24, 2022