Libraries partnerships for open access

The Libraries maintains memberships with publishers and publications that provide UMN-affiliated authors with reduced author publishing fees, and offer support for scholar-owned models.

The Libraries

invests in programs with publishers and publications that provide UMN-affiliated authors with a discount on APCs,
supports open access infrastructure, and
supports organizations that promote and provide essential infrastructure to facilitate the transition to open access.

Reduced author publishing fees

The Libraries supports memberships with publishers and publications that provide UMN-affiliated authors with a discount on author publishing fees (APCs).

Membership models and APC discounting programs may be subject to change at any time, so check the publishers' website before submitting. You can check in with your subject specialist librarian if you have questions about a particular partnership.

American Chemical Society (ACS): As subscribers to the All Publications package, UMN-affiliated authors are eligible for a $250 discount on APCs. UMN-affiliated authors who are members of ACS receive an additional $250 discount.
Biochemical Society and Portland Press: The University of Minnesota is participating in the Biochemical Society's read and publish pilot program. Through our participation, all articles accepted for publication from UMN corresponding authors in 2023 are free of any APC charges.
BMC: BMC publishes a wide-ranging portfolio of open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journals in areas including biology and medicine, social sciences, and philosophy. See the full list of titles by discipline. University of Minnesota is a member of BMC and authors can receive a discount on the article processing charge. See BMC's website for more information on how to obtain this discount.
Cambridge University Press (CUP): Research articles, review articles, rapid communications, brief reports, and case reports with a UMN-affiliated corresponding author are eligible to publish their work OA in CUP Gold or Hybrid OA journals (downloadable list) with no fee. Link your account to our institution for access.
Cogitatio Press: The Libraries supports Cogitatio Press, which publishes four fully open access journals. UMN corresponding authors can publish with no charge.
Company of Biologists: UMN is participating in an agreement with the Company of Biologists. The agreement allows articles with a corresponding author from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities to be published OA at no cost to the author in Development, the Journal of Cell Science, and the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Demography: The UMN Libraries are supporting Demography as it transitions from a traditional subscription model to an open access model in which there are no APCs for any author, regardless of their affiliations.
Dryad: UMN has a one-year pilot agreement with the data repository Dryad through which publishing charges and overage fees are waived. Submission to Dryad is a requirement for some journals.
Electrochemical Society (ECS): The Electrochemical Society (ECS) has merged with IOP Publishing. See the IOP Publishing entry on this page. The new journals ECS Sensors Plus and ECS Advances are currently offering APC waivers for all authors for 2023.
IOP Publishing: Through an agreement with the BTAA and IOP, articles with a corresponding author from UMN are eligible for a $0 APC in 74 IOP titles. The agreement with IOP allows for original research and review articles to be published as open access in all journals that participate in IOP's transformative agreements, including most of its fully open access and hybrid open access journals. A small number of journals attach additional charges including, but not limited to, page charges. These remain the responsibility of the authors.
IWA Publishing: The International Water Association publishes in the areas of water, wastewater and environmental sciences. The UMN Libraries is participating in IWA Publishing's subscribe-to-open model. Through this model, ten journals are now open access and free for any author to publish.
JMIR Publications: JMIR Publications publishes 26 health science journals, including the Journal of Medical Internet Research. They publish their articles open access, in HTML format. As a Bronze-level member, University of Minnesota-affiliated readers have free access to PDFs of the journal articles.
MDPI: To align with the Libraries' values, we have ended the membership with MDPI.
Microbiology Society: University of Minnesota is participating in the Microbiology Society's Publish and Read program through the Big Ten Academic Alliance. To be eligible, the corresponding author must be from UMN, use their @umn.edu email address, and the article must be accepted between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2025.
Nucleic Acids Research: Oxford University Press has discontinued the Nucleic Acids Research membership program. The discount for UMN authors is no longer available.
Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3): University of Minnesota participates in the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3). Through SCOAP3, authors affiliated with the University can publish in 11 open access journals in the area of high energy physics at no cost.
Open Book Publishers: The Libraries supports Open Book Publishers, which publishes academic monographs, edited volumes, textbooks and reports in humanities, social sciences and the sciences. Authors submit their manuscript to a rigorous peer review process and, if accepted, the monograph will be published open access at no cost to the authors.
PLOS Medicine and PLOS Biology: Through an agreement negotiated by the Big Ten Academic Alliance, research articles with a UMN-affiliated corresponding author (or a corresponding author from another PLOS Community Action Program-member institution) will not be charged an APC. If the corresponding author is not a PLOS CAP member, UMN’s membership entitles the article to a discount. For more information, see Community Action Publishing FAQs on the PLOS website.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: The Libraries' subscription to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences allows UMN-affiliated authors a discounted open access fee of $4,975 for immediate OA with a CC BY-NC-ND license. Note that all articles require a publication fee and are free to read six months after publication.
Science Advances: University-affiliated authors are eligible for a 5% discount on the APC for Science Advances.
SpringerOpen: SpringerOpen publishes a wide-ranging portfolio of open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journals in areas including science, technology, medicine, the humanities and social sciences. See the full list of titles by discipline. University of Minnesota is a member of SpringerOpen and authors can receive a discount on the article processing charge.
TOME / Digital Publishing in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences initiative: TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) supports open access editions of peer-reviewed and professionally edited monographs. CLA faculty authors must first submit their manuscripts to one of the participating AAU presses. See the CLA Neighborhood website for more information.
Wiley (hybrid journals): Through the Big Ten Academic Alliance, the University of Minnesota is participating in an agreement that waives APCs for primary research and review articles where the responsible corresponding author is from the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities, Rochester, Duluth, or Morris campuses). The agreement covers both hybrid open access (Wiley's Online Open journals) and fully open access journals (Wiley Gold journals and Hindawi titles).
Other available discounts: Occasionally, publishers offer limited discounts on open access/article process charges. UMN authors are encouraged to ask their publishers if there are any available discounts.

Support for scholarly-owned infrastructure

The Libraries also helps make content open through our memberships with:

And we support organizations that promote and provide essential infrastructure to support the transition to open access:

Suggest a project

We welcome suggestions about open access projects that could use Libraries support. Share your ideas on how the Libraries can promote open access by contacting openaccess@umn.edu.