Open Access publishing provides free and unlimited online access to scientific literature and scholarly information.

Open Access publishing requires an Article Processing Charge (APC) to cover the costs of publishing an article in an OA journal (i.e. editorial costs for peer review, editorial processing, access, archiving, and infrastructure).

The APC fee is paid by the author or the author's department (university or research organization), most often from project funds.

The amount of this fee varies from journal/publisher to journal, taking into account the different costs and prestige of the journal. The average cost is 2500 €. The specific amount of the APC fee should be transparent and searchable on the publisher's website.

A limited number of tokens will be available for payment of APC fees from some publishers in 2025 as part of the concluded transformation agreements (via CzechELib). The quantity of tokens will be similar to 2024, the exact number will be known by mid-February 2025. Tokens for 2025 can be redeemed as early as January 1, 2025.

Springer Nature: about 7 tokens
Wiley: about 8 tokens
Taylor & Francis: about 6 tokens
Emerald Publishing (col. Engineering): about 2 tokens
ACM: unlimited tokens
Cambridge University Press: unlimited tokens
Sage: 20% discount on Gold OA titles, 90% discount on hybrid titles (200 GBP/APC)

Instructions for authors can be found on the website of the CzechELib National Centre. You can also find an informative list of journals with free/discounted OA publishing.

Tokens are allocated according to the "First come first served" rule.

For communication with publishers it is necessary to indicate the affiliation to UWB, i.e. use e-mail with the domain @zcu.cz.

We recommend using tokens only if APC funding from other sources is not available.

1 token = 1 paid APC fee per article (no additional costs for UWB).

Contact e-mail: openaccess@uk.zcu.cz