Open Access

Open Access Equity Fund

The University Library has established a new Open Access Equity Fund aimed at supporting those who do not have access to funds to make their research publicly available. The fund allows the Library to contribute to article processing charges (APCs), book processing charges (BPCs) and chapter processing charges (CPCs).

Process:

1. Applicant completes online form
2. Library checks eligibility against the criteria
3. Applications will be assessed by a sub-group of the Research Committee with members from each Division and Faculty as well as Library staff
4. Library pays APC (article processing charge), BPC (book processing charge) or CPC (chapter processing charge), or part thereof as agreed
5. Library reports to the Research Committee on outcomes

Eligibility and Assessment Criteria:

University of Waikato academic staff, post-doctoral fellows and postgraduate students without sufficient funds which can be used for APCs, BPCs or CPCs are eligible to apply and applications are considered on a case-by-case basis.

The following factors will be taken into consideration:

• Prioritisation of Early Career Researchers (i.e. postgraduate students, research fellows and researchers who are within 8 years (at the date of application) of academic employment (this includes postdoctoral research employment).)
• Māori researchers or those undertaking Kaupapa Māori Research
• Pacific researchers or those undertaking Pacific research
• Underrepresented disciplines (areas that have received less funding from this fund)
• Evidence of effort to seek funds from elsewhere (co-funding strongly encouraged)
• Quality of publication
• Potential to enhance PBRF/rankings
• Cost of charge
• Self-archiving policy of the journal (Article Processing Charge in journals that carry zero embargo to make available through Research Commons will only be considered in exceptional circumstances).

APPLY

Research Commons

Research Commons is the University’s institutional repository. Through Research Commons, researchers can make their research open for free, within the limits imposed by their publisher. Researchers can submit their research to Research Commons through IRIS. It’s important to note that most commonly it is the Author Accepted Manuscript that the publisher will allow to be made open, sometimes with an embargo. The Author Accepted Manuscript is the version of the document that comes after peer review, but before copy-editing. Research Commons staff will ensure compliance with the publisher’s policy and will manage any embargo periods for you.

Read and Publish deals

The Library has a number of “Read and Publish” deals that allow University of Waikato corresponding authors to publish open access in a range of journals without payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC). It is important to note that not all journals are covered and some agreements are capped. More information, including a list of eligible titles, can be found on the Read and Publish Agreements page.

For more advice, contact [email protected] and a member of the Open Research Team will be in touch.