SBA - University Library System

Publishing open access 
SBA Research Support

Contacts

Open access costs

The University Library System helps Ca' Foscari authors by supporting the costs of publishing articles in journals in open access (APC-Article Processing Charge).

APCs are paid only once and make the article accessible forever for the benefit of the whole scientific community.

SBA open access support

The University Library System supports - totally or partially - the open access publication fees through 3 types of support:

  1. SBA fund for APCs and OA books
  2. Institutional open access agreements (Read&Publish agreements)
  3. Agreements that provide some discounts on APCs for Ca' Foscari authors.

1) SBA fund for APCs and OA books

Who: professors, researchers, PhD students, research fellows and equivalent
What:

  1. open access article (APC) published in international journals
  2. open access book

Requirements:

  1. the journal must have at least one of the following two characteristics:

    • is included in class A of the sector to which the author belongs or related sectors, or is indexed in Scopus or WoS
    • is ranked in the first quartile of the Scimago index (SJR)

  2. the book must be explicitly peer reviewed and accepted for publication

How much is the benefit: refund of open access publication fees up to a maximum of 2,000 €
How to get the benefit: fill this form [ITA]

Each department has a pre-established total of tokens subject to availability.
Before submitting the request we suggest to contact the administration office of your Department in order to verify:

  • if you can cover the difference in the publishing cost in case it exceeds €2,000
  • if your publication is compliant with the criteria that your department can have established for selecting articles/monographs eligible for the funding.

Open Access Publishing Support Request [ITA] 

2) Institutional open access agreements (Read&Publish agreements)

Who: professors, researchers, fellows, doctoral students, technical and administrative staff and those who are an affiliation with Ca' Foscari. The benefit is for the corresponding author (the author who submits the article to the publisher)
What: publication fees (APC) of open access articles published in journals included in the transformative agreements (Read&Publish) signed by Ca' Foscari
How much is the benefit: full amount of the APC. Authors do not have to pay the APC, which is entirely paid by the University. For each contract, a share of the APCs is set at the disposal of all the institutions that are party to the agreement. In the event that the annual national limit set by the contracts is reached, the cost of any additional articles will be borne by the individual authors.

Below is the list of existing contracts and all the details.

Contract duration: 2022-2025
What does the agreement provide: the agreement covers the APCs of articles published by corresponding authors affiliated with Ca' Foscari who can publish unlimited eligible articles in open access.
Eligible articles: research articles, review articles, conference or proceedings papers, short papers, technical note, tutorial, case study, interview, survey
List of publications: ACM Digital Library
License: CC-BY 4.0
Retrospective conversion to Open Access: according to the contract, authors can choose the open access option by modifying the license and the method of publication of articles already published in the same journals but not in open access. The publisher will directly contact eligible authors for retrospective conversion of articles published after May 1, 2022.
Useful resources for authors: Author Rights Workflow; Information for Authors; Open Access Publication & ACM

Contract duration: 2020-2023 [the new agreement is under negotiation, therefore from 1st January 2024 the possibility of publishing in open access through the transformative agreement is suspended]
What does the agreement provide: the agreement covers the APCs of articles published in hybrid journals of the subscription collection by corresponding authors affiliated with Ca' Foscari. The number of eligible APCs is limited.
List of publications: All Pubs (except for ACS Omega)
License: CC-BY
Retrospective conversion to Open Access: according to the contract, authors can choose the open access option by modifying the license and the method of publication of articles already published in the same journals but not in open access. The choice must be made within the year of publication.

Contract duration: 2023-2025 
What does the agreement provide: the agreement covers the APCs of eligible articles published in hybrid or gold OA journals. The number of eligible APCs is unlimited
Eligible articles: research articles, review articles, rapid communications, brief report, case reports
List of publications: Gold OA Journals, Hybrid Journals
License: CC BY 4.0
Retrospective conversion to Open Access: according to the contract, authors can choose the open access option by modifying the license and the method of publication of articles already published in the same journals but not in open access.
Useful resources for authors: Publishing Open Access

Elsevier Full Gold OA fund is finished

The publisher Elsevier announced that the annual APC fund for articles published in full Gold Open Access journals is finished.
As a consequence the corresponding author has to pay the whole publication costs (APC), but will be eligible for a 15% discount. This measure also concerns articles under review that have not yet been accepted.
It is therefore advisable not to submit articles to Elsevier's Gold Open Access journals and to prefer, if possible, Elsevier's hybrid journals for which it is still possible to finance APCs.

Contract duration: 2023-2027
What does the agreement provide: the agreement covers the APCs of articles published in:

See the publisher's page for all the agreement details.

List of publications: check if a journal is included in the agreement via the Find a participating journal page. Please pay attention: Cell Press hybrid journals are excluded from the agreement.

Eligible articles: 

  1. case reports
  2. full-length articles
  3. eview articles
  4. short communications (from 2025)

Retrospective conversion to Open Access: according to the contract, authors can choose the open access option by modifying the license and the method of publication of articles already published in the same journals (but not in open access) after January 1, 2023.
License: CC BY 4.0, CC BY NC ND 4.0

Contract duration: 2020-2024
What does the agreement provide: the agreement covers the APCs of articles published in hybrid or gold OA journals by corresponding authors affiliated with Ca' Foscari. The number of eligible APCs is limited. The number of eligible APCs is limited.
Eligible articles: all article types are included provided they have been through the publisher’s peer review process
List of publications: Emerald Journals List
License: CC-BY
Retrospective conversion to Open Access: according to the contract, authors can choose the open access option by modifying the license and the method of publication of articles already published in the same journals but not in open access. The choice must be made within the year of publication.

Contract duration: 2022-2024
What does the agreement provide: the agreement covers the APCs of articles publishedin hybrid or full gold OA journals by corresponding authors affiliated with Ca' Foscari. The number of eligible APCs is unlimited.
Eligible articles: regular paper, review paper, brief, invited, survey
List of publications: IEEE Title List 2022
License: CC-BY 4.0
Useful resources for authors: IEEE Author Center; IEEE Author Process

Contract duration: 2022 - 2024
What does the agreement provide: the agreement covers the APCs of articles published in the RSC Gold Collection (including journals that become full Open Access during the contract) by corresponding authors affiliated with Ca' Foscari. The number of eligible APCs is unlimited.
Eligible articles: primary/secondary research article, review article
List of publications: eligible journals are all hybrid journals (included in the RSC Gold Collection subscribded by Ca' Foscari) and hybrid journals that will become full Open Access during the duration of the contract: RSC_Journal List_2022
License: CC-BY, CC-BY-NC
Useful resources for authors: Author Hub; Read&Publish Agreement - Author Guide.

Contract duration: 2024 - 2027
What does the agreement provide: the agreement covers the APCs of articles published in gold open access journals and hybrid journals
List of publications: about 600 gold open access journals; about 1300 hybrid journals
Eligible articles: articles marked with the letter Y in this List of Article Classifications Eligible for Open Access Publishing
Retrospective conversion to Open Access: according to the contract, authors can choose the open access option by modifying the license and the method of publication of articles already published in the same journals (but not in open access) after January 1, 2024
License: CC BY 4.0

3) Agreements that provide some discounts on APCs

Who: professors, researchers, fellows, doctoral students, technical and administrative staff and those who are an affiliation with Ca' Foscari
What: discount on publication fees (APC) which remain in the charge of authors
How much is the benefit: the discount varies according to the agreement.

Below is the list of existing contracts and all the details.

Contract duration:: 2021 -
List of publications: Physical Review C, Physical Review D, Physical Review Letters (progetto SCOAP3 - Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics)
License: CC-BY 

Subsidies by financing bodies

In some cases, Open Access publication fees (APC) may be covered by the funding bodies.

If you participate in a research project, it is always good to check what the call for proposals provides for. For instance, the European Commission considers all APCs as reimbursable costs for the Horizon 2020 programme, while for the Horizon Europe programme it provides for deposit and immediate access, whereas APCs are only reimbursed if the author publishes in fully Open Access (Golden Open Access Journals) journals.
Authors participating in Horizon Europe projects have three options:

  1. publish on the Open Research Europe (ORE) platform
  2. publish in a fully Open Access journal
  3. publish in a traditional commercial journal while retaining the rights to give immediate access through e.g., deposit in the institutional repository.

Last update: 06/11/2024