posted on 2020-11-05, 11:00authored byBo-Christer Björk, David Solomon
This report was commissioned by a consortium of European research funding organizations led by the Wellcome Trust. The study was undertaken to stimulate thinking among research funders who have set up, or are considering setting up, mechanisms for direct “earmarked” funding of
article processing charges (APCs) in open access (OA) journals.
The report covers both full OA journals (referred to in the report as “full OA”, such as those published by Biomed Central and PLOS) and subscription journals which offer authors the possibility of making their individual articles OA by paying an APC. This latter category is known
as “hybrid OA”.
There are many full OA journals that are funded by means other than APCs and the term “gold OA” also includes these journals. When they are included in the discussion this will be make clear, the focus of the report is however on the segment of gold OA funded by APCs.