Open Access Publishing
How to publish in OA as a University author under publisher agreements
The University Library System has agreements with leading national and international publishers to facilitate Open Access publishing. University-affiliated authors are eligible for discounts on Article Processing Charges (APC).
Publishing options
Transformative Agreements
The University Library System participates in the transformative agreements signed by the national consortium CRUI CARE with major international publishers. These agreements enable Corresponding Authors affiliated with the University to publish in Open Access, with the Article Processing Charge for each individual article covered by the contract, at no cost to the Corresponding Author.
Financial Support for Open Access Publishing
The University Library System subscribes to memberships that offer discounts on the list price of APCs for Gold Open Access and Hybrid journals. Discounts on publications in Gold Open Access journals are compatible with requests for APC funding through the University’s centralised Open Access Gold Fund.
The annual fund to support Gold Open Access publishing was established on the initiative of the Open Science Commission. Funding requests are approved by the Performance, Quality Assurance, Assessment, and Open Science Policy Division.
Who is eligible for Open Access support?
Publishing support is available exclusively to authors affiliated with the University. For transformative agreements and financial support for Open Access publishing, the only eligible figure under the contract is the Corresponding Author. The Corresponding Author (referred to by some publishers as the “primary author”) is the individual responsible for direct communication with the publisher and for managing the entire submission and publication process of the article.
Who qualifies as an affiliate?
An affiliate is anyone with an active affiliation with the University, including tenured professors, contract lecturers, researchers (categories A and B), research fellows, scholarship recipients, PhD candidates, postgraduate specialisation students, enrolled students, and technical-administrative staff (e.g. laboratory technicians).
What should affiliates check before submitting their work?
- The journal selected for publication:
Affiliates must check the list of journals covered by the funding agreement for each publisher. This list may differ slightly from the publisher’s full catalogue. Full details are available in the contract summaries on the Open Access page. - The type of articles eligible for funding under the agreement:
Not all article types qualify for funding (for example, Articles and Reviews are always included, but Brief Communications are not). Affiliates should ensure their article type is eligible before applying for Open Access funding. - Any additional costs not covered by the agreement:
These may include submission fees, page overlength charges, or costs for colour images and photographs.
How do I request Open Access validation?
The Corresponding Author submits the validation request for Open Access publication directly through the publisher’s online platform, once the peer review process has been successfully completed. The publisher’s system then sends a notification to the service mailbox managed by the University Library System: APC.bibliotecadigitale@unimi.it. The Approval Manager verifies the author’s affiliation as of the article’s acceptance date, as well as the journal’s and article’s eligibility under the terms of the agreement. Detailed and regularly updated information on individual agreements can be found on the Open Access page.
