Funding open access

Open access (OA) publishing may involve costs. These costs are called Article Processing Charges (APCs), or Book Processing Charges (BPCs). Publishers determine the amount of these charges. There are several ways to cover costs.

Via diamond open access (free for authors)

The diamond route is free for authors and does not involve APCs or BPCs. The costs of open access publishing are covered by external supporters, often universities, funding organisations and scholarly societies. This makes the diamond open access route an easy, equitable and accessible way to publish immediately in open access. 

Find trustworthy diamond open access publishers:

• For articles: in the Directory of Open Access Journals – DOAJ.
• For book: the Open Book Collective is a collective of publishers and service providers focused on (diamond) Open Access. The Netherlands University Presses (NUPs) is a joint website of Dutch (diamond) university publishers.

Via discount agreements for articles (hybrid and sometimes gold)

Open access deals (also known as publisher deals) give you, as an author, up to a 100% discount on APCs for many hybrid and some gold OA journals. These are agreements between UU or the Universities of the Netherlands and journal publishers. Sometimes the agreements apply to all of a publisher's journals, and sometimes only to a selection.

Find open access deals

The search results in the UU Journal Browser show you where you, as a UU or UMC Utrecht author, can publish open access at a discount.

Via research budget (gold and sometimes hybrid open access)

You pay the costs for OA publishing from your research budget. The conditions for OA publishing are set out in the agreement with your funder. See below for the general options per funder.

Only a grant from UU or UMC Utrecht?

You can probably use your grant to pay for APCs or BPCs. Is this not possible? Ask your own faculty about the possibilities.

A grant from NWO or ZonMw?

You can pay (part of) the costs for open access publishing from your project budget.  This applies to:

• articles in gold open access journals
• books and chapters from books

A grant from the European Union?

You can pay (part of) the costs for open access publishing from your project budget.  This applies to:

• articles in gold open access journals
• articles in hybrid open access journals
• books

Does your project fall within the Horizon Europe programme? Then, you cannot pay the costs for articles in hybrid journals from the project budget.

No (full) funding possible?

You may be able to make a version of your closed article available via the UU Repository. This is the green route to open access publishing. This route is free for authors. But please note: it is not the same as open access publishing in a journal or on a publisher's platform.

The green route is an option for:

• articles
• book chapters