Open Access UAB Libraries' APC Fund

The UAB Libraries' Open Access Article Processing Charge (APC) Fund offers financial support for UAB faculty, staff, and students wishing to make their research open access. Financial support comes from the UAB Libraries, the UAB Heersink School of Medicine, and the UAB School of Health Professions. 

All APC funds have been awarded for this FY. 

Additional funds will be available on 10/1/24. Questions about the program can be directed to Jeff Graveline (jgraveli@uab.edu), Associate Dean for Research and Scholarly Communication and Director of the UAB Libraries' Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC). 

You must meet both of the eligibility requirements listed below to apply for APC funding:

• Full-time UAB faculty, staff, or student; and
• Lead or corresponding author on the article.

Early-career faculty are encouraged to apply. Articles with multiple UAB authors are are eligible for only one APC funding award. Your article must be accepted by a qualifying journal prior to submitting your funding application. 

The OSC offers up to $2,000.00 per article to offset the cost of APCs for eligible research articles. Payment of any APC cost in excess of $2,000.00 is the author's responsibility. Authors are limited to one APC funding award per fiscal year.

The APC Fund totals $20,000.00 for the current fiscal year, and awards are granted on a first come, first served basis. When the Fund is exhausted, no additional awards will be made until the next fiscal year.  Preference is given to first-time applicants when the Fund is running low. 

(as of 12/4/23, FY ends 09/30/24)

Journal articles must meet the following criteria to be considered for APC funding: 

• Original article published in a fully open access (Gold OA) journal. Articles published in hybrid journals do not qualify for funding;
• Journal should be registered with the Directory of Open Access Journals and the journal’s publisher should be a member of the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) or the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), or comply with a similar Code of Conduct;
• Work should be openly licensed using a Creative Commons license or equivalent; and 
• APC fee schedule must be publicly available on the journal's web site.

Funding applications should be submitted using the APC Funding Request Form. A member of the UAB Libraries Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) will confirm receipt of your application within two business days. Funding decisions are typically made within two weeks from the date of application.  

Funds will be electronically transferred from the UAB Libraries to the applicant's Academic Department. Applicants are responsible for ensuring funds are used to pay the required APC and should work with their Department's financial officer to make such payments.

Proof of APC payment should be submitted to the OSC as soon as practicable.  

All open access research articles published with support of the APC Fund may be deposited in the UAB Libraries Digital Commons institutional repository after publication. Authors wishing to have their research articles included in Digital Commons should contact the UAB Libraries' Institutional Repository Outreach Librarian. 

The following acknowledgement will be included with each article in Digital Commons: “APC funding for this article was supported by the UAB Libraries APC Fund.”