Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Article Processing Charges (APCs) are fees charged to the author or creator to cover the cost of publishing and disseminating an article, rather than charging the potential reader of the article via library or individual journal subscriptions. APCs may apply to both commercial and open access publications.

La Trobe University Library does not provide funds for APCs.  If there is an APC required to publish your research, it is recommended that this cost be built into the initial grant application. In Australia, the APCs are usually covered by grants, or by the authors themselves.

La Trobe Library has a number of publisher agreements which may provide an APC discount or waiver for La Trobe researchers to publish their research as open access. The publishers and agreement details are listed on the next page of this guide.

As an LTU researcher, you can avoid paying ANY article processing charges by choosing to make the accepted manuscript available via OPAL (our institutional repository) under the Green open access model. This will satisfy the mandates for open access as required by both ARC and NHMRC (subject to publisher AAM embargoes, and noting the 2020 NHMRC Open Access policy), and will result in your research being openly available, after any embargo periods, for the broader community.

Before you pay a journal to publish your research article, check:

• The publisher or journal is reputable? There is an increasing number of unethical publishers who will take your grant funds with little or no return for the money.
• Does the publisher provide clear information about the application of APCs, including outlining the expected costs and payment measures?
• What are the copyright and licensing options available to you? Open access materials will generally carry a Creative Commons (CC) licence and ideally, the author should have the option to select the type of CC licence to be applied, as well as retaining the copyright for the material.
• What is your funder policy regarding allocating some of your grant to cover APC costs?
• Does the publisher offer an APC discount or waiver that you may be eligible for? – check the next page in this guide for a list of publishers with which La Trobe has discount and waiver agreements, and information about the agreements.

Australasian Open Access Strategy Group - Article Processing Charges