Open Access Publishing Agreements

Through agreements with scholarly publishers, Columbia Libraries provides no-fee, open-access-publishing options for Columbia authors. Learn about our agreements with a growing list of publishers below.

Read and Publish Agreements

Read-and-publish agreements between Columbia University Libraries and different scholarly publishers allow Columbia-affiliated corresponding authors to publish their work open access at no cost in designated journals. The terms of each agreement vary, so please read through the details.

Cambridge University Press

Article processing charges (APCs) waived for open access articles that meet the following eligibility criteria:

  • Have a corresponding author affiliated with Columbia University*

  • Are original research (eligible article types are research articles, review articles, rapid communications, brief reports, and case reports)

  • Are accepted for publication in a CUP journal that is covered by the agreement

  • Are accepted for publication on or after January 1, 2022

To begin the process of publishing open access with a CUP journal, register for an account via their online submission system with a Columbia email address in order to waive APCs.

Learn more about this agreement in this blog post.

* Includes Columbia, Barnard, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary affiliates.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

Article Processing charges (APCs) waived for open access articles that meet the following eligibility criteria:

  • Have a corresponding author primarily affiliated with Columbia University*
  • Fully peer-reviewed research, review, and case-study articles, accepted for publication, are eligible for Open Access publishing in their hybrid research journals, Genes & Development, Genome Research, Learning & Memory, RNA, and CSH Molecular Case Studies. Editorials, comments, protocols, methods, and similar materials are not eligible. Articles in CSH Protocols, CSH Perspectives in Biology, and CSH Perspectives in Medicine are commissioned by the editors and do not accept submissions.
  • The Publisher will offer the corresponding author the option to publish and distribute the article Version of Record as an Open Access publication with a CC-BY or a CC-BY-NC Version 4.0 license, with the author retaining copyright.
  • Are accepted for publication on or after January 1, 2023.

Learn more about this agreement in here.

*Includes Columbia, Barnard, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary affiliates.

Company of Biologists

Article processing charges (APCs) waived for open access articles that meet the following eligibility criteria:

  • Have a corresponding author affiliated with Columbia University*

  • Are accepted for publication in a Company of Biologists journal

  • Are accepted for publication on or after January 1, 2023

* Includes Columbia, Barnard, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary affiliates. This agreement also includes contractors and alumni.

Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing

Article processing charges (APCs) waived for open access articles that meet the following eligibility criteria:

* Includes Columbia, Barnard, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary affiliates.

John Benjamins Journals

Article processing charges (APCs) waived for open access articles that meet the following eligibility criteria:

* Includes Columbia, Barnard, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary affiliates. 

PLoS Biology

Under the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Community Action Publishing (CAP) agreement, article processing charges (APCs) waived for open access articles that meet the following eligibility criteria:

  • Have a corresponding author affiliated with Columbia University.* (Articles with Columbia University co-authors will receive a 25% discount on the non-member fee. Fees are outlined in the CAP FAQ.)

Are accepted for publication in PLoS Biology on or after January 1, 2023

*Includes Columbia, Barnard, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary affiliates.

Royal Society

Article processing charges (APCs) waived for open access articles that meet the following eligibility criteria:

  • Have a corresponding author primarily affiliated with Columbia University*

  • Are accepted for publication in a Royal Society journal (with the exception of Biographical Memoirs)

  • Are accepted for publication on or after January 1, 2023

To begin the process of publishing open access with a Royal Society publisher, pick Columbia University as your institution when you submit your article.

*Includes Columbia, Barnard, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary affiliates.

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)

Article processing charges (APCs) waived for open access articles that meet the following eligibility criteria:

* Includes Columbia, Barnard, Teachers College, and Union Theological Seminary affiliates. 

Subscribe to Open Agreements

Subscribe to Open (S2O) publishing models ask libraries to maintain their current subscription to a journal. If enough subscriptions are maintained, the entire volume year is made OA enabling both free access to read articles and to publish articles in the journal. If a journal remains closed for a subscription year, authors from subscribing institutions can still make their article OA, usually free of charge.  

Here’s a list of S2O journals/publishers Columbia University Libraries support:  

Columbia authors can publish for free in any S2O journal regardless of whether Columbia has a publishing agreement with the journal. Find a list of S2O journals here and a list of S2O publishers here.  

Learn More

Do you have questions about publishing open access with a journal or publisher listed on this page? Columbia librarians are available via email at scholarlycommunication [at] library.columbia.edu to help guide researchers through the application and publishing process. You can also find answers to many questions about open access, copyright and licensing, and other publishing topics on the Libraries’ Scholarly Communications web page.