Funding open access

Open access (OA) publishing may involve costs.  These costs are also called Article Processing Charges or APCs. Publishers determine how much money must be paid. This page tells you how to finance APCs for open access.  

Via discount agreements with publishers

Discount agreements are also called open access deals or publisher deals. These agreements are made between the UU or Universities of the Netherlands and publishers on the costs of open access publishing. They can apply to publishing in of both gold - and hybrid open access journals. Sometimes, the agreements apply to all journals of a publisher and sometimes only to a selection.

In the search result of the UU Journal Browser, you can see where you, as a UU author, get a discount on open access publishing. This can be up to a 100% discount.

Caps for deals

Please note that some deals have a maximum number of articles per year. When the maximum (cap) is reached, you can no longer publish here for free. Read more about capped deals on openaccess.nl

Via research funders

More and more research funders are willing to pay for the cost of open access publishing in addition to funding the research. The arrangements for this are set out in the agreement with your funder. Check out the general possibilities per funder below.  

Only a grant from UU or UMCU

You can probably use your grant to pay for APCs. 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. However, this only applies to articles in fully open access journals. In addition, NWO has a separate fund for open access books.  

A grant from the European Union

You can pay (part of) the costs of open access publishing from your project budget. This applies to articles in fully open access journals and in hybrid journals, and to open access 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) reimbursement possible?  

Then check the UU journal browser for journals in which you can publish open access for free. Is this not an option? Don't have an external research funder with OA requirements and don't have a grant with which to pay for APCs? In that case, the green route to open access is an option. 

Questions?

Do you have questions about funding open access publishing? Feel free to contact the Publishing Support team. 

Mail to Publishing Support