Financial support
The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and USI can provide financial support for publication expenses related to the Gold road to OA. Detailed information is available here: https://www.desk.usi.ch/en/funding-open-access-publications.
Moreover, specific agreements regarding the price of APCs have been reached with some publishers.
How to benefit from them:
the corresponding author of the article must be a USI researcher (exceptions apply);
the journal must be included in the agreement list;
the article's acceptance date must match the agreement's duration period;
the article quota must not be exhausted, where applicable;
Tips:
use your institutional email address (@usi) to facilitate the matching process already at submission;
clearly indicate your USI affiliation upon submission;
submit your article within the USI network (matching process through the IP address).
USI researchers can benefit from the following discount rates:
Publisher | Agreement description | Journals |
|---|---|---|
ACM - Association for Computing Machinery | Validity: 2026 - 2028 100% free APCs for all peer-reviewed articles in all ACM publications Excluded article types: conference proceedings co-published with IEEE or Sage, listed here. | |
ACS - American Chemical Society | Validity: 2026 100% free APCs for Gold OA and Hybrid OA articles in all Web Edition. National yearly quota: 235 accepted articles Excluded article types: additions, corrections or editorials | |
BMJ Standard Collection | Validity: 2026 100% free APCs for 'Original Research' Hybrid OA articles in the BMJ Standard Collection portfolio, and 15% discount on APCs of articles in BMJ Gold Journals. National yearly quota: 13 accepted articles | |
Cell Press | → see Elsevier | |
Dove Press | → see Taylor&Francis | |
Elsevier | Validity: 2024-2026 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles by the publishers Elsevier, Cell Press, and Lancet Journals | |
F1000 Research platform | → see Taylor&Francis | |
Frontiers | Validity: 2026 100% free APCs for all peer-review articles in the entire Frontiers portfolio, until exhaustion of the amount prepayed by USI. Additional conditions: only USI members entitled to Gold Open Access reimbursement are allowed to publish within this agreement (» see inclusion criteria) | all |
John Benjamins | Validity: 2026 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles. | all journals |
Karger Journals | Validity: 2026-2028 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles. Included article types: case reports, research, review, systematic review, meta-analyses and methods articles | |
Lancet Journals | → see Elsevier | |
MDPI | Validity: 2026-2027 20% discount on APCs, 10% discount on BPCs. Additional conditions: discounted APCs in Gold journals: only USI members eligible to the USI Gold OA Fund can request the full coverage of the APC invoice (» see inclusion criteria) | |
Nature | The negotiations at the national level between swissuniversities and Springer Nature have not resulted in a satisfying agreement for the involved institutions yet, which led to a situation without a contract from January 2026. More information on the impact on publications available here. | No APC coverage currently available. |
Oxford University Press | Validity: 2025-2027. Free APCs for Hybrid OA articles. In addition, 10% discount on APCs in Gold OA journals Additional conditions: discounted APCs in Gold journals: only USI members eligible to the USI Gold OA Fund can request the coverage of the APC invoice (» see inclusion criteria) | |
PLOS | Validity: 2025-2026 100% free APCs in seven Gold OA journals |
|
SAGE | The negotiations at the national level between swissuniversities and Sage have not resulted in a satisfying agreement for the involved institutions yet, which led to a situation without a contract from January 2026. More information on the impact on publications available here. | No APC coverage currently available. |
Springer | The negotiations at the national level between swissuniversities and Springer Nature have not resulted in a satisfying agreement for the involved institutions yet, which led to a situation without a contract from January 2026. More information on the impact on publications available here. | No APC coverage currently available. |
Taylor&Francis | Validity: 2024-2027 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles, including Dove Press (Gold OA) and F1000 Research platform (Gold OA). | |
Wiley | Validity: 2025-2027 100% free APCs for Gold and Hybrid OA articles. Included article types: primary research and review articles Excluded article types: other article types e.g. letters, editorials etc. are excluded National yearly quota: hybrid articles: 2'000 / gold articles: 400 |
Sources
Suber, Peter. Open Access. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2012. Pdf download - Open Access
IST Austria. Why publish Open Access?. https://ist.ac.at/.... Viewed May 3, 2018.
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Open Access to Publications. http://www.snf.ch/...Viewed May 3, 2018.
Universitätsbibliothek, Universität Bern. Open Access. http://www.unibe.ch/.... Viewed May 3, 2018.
Budapest Open Access Initiative. Read the Budapest Open Access Initiative. http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/.... Viewed May 3, 2018.
