University of Barcelona funding for Open access publishing | Learning and Research Resources Centre

Open access journals offer full-text versions of articles without the need to be a subscriber. In most cases, reuse is also permitted. However, scientific publishing has a cost, and some journals therefore apply publication fees. These fees are usually paid by the institutions and bodies that funded the research or the institutions where the researchers work.

In addition to subscription fees paid to scientific journals, the University of Barcelona offers funding to cover the cost of publication fees in order to support the new Open Access publication model, which also has an associated cost. The University of Barcelona funding programme follows the model adopted by prestigious universities around the world.

Call for applications 2025

This year, the Vice-rectorate for Research Promotion makes available to the community of the University of Barcelona a new call for grants to publish in open access scientific journals, framed in the policy for supporting the free dissemination of knowledge. The budget for this call is 120,000 euros.

This call has run out the available funds for 2025 (13th/November/2025)

Who can request funding?

The eligibility requirements for funding are as follows: Applicants (the authors of articles) must be members of the University of Barcelona’s teaching and research staff or administrative and service staff (in active service), or currently enrolled students. The article for which funding is requested must have been accepted for publication in an Open Access journal after 1 January 2025. At least one author must be a member of the University of Barcelona’s teaching and research staff, and it must be this author who submits the application. A separate application must be submitted for each article.

The maximum sum that may be requested for each publication is 1,500 euros, and in no case may an applicant request a sum that exceeds the established publication fee. If the article has two or more authors, each University of Barcelona author may request their corresponding fractional amount, which must be proportional in relation to the total number of authors. The same author cannot ask for more than one grant per year, although they can be a co-author of another funded article. In this later case, they will not receive their proportional amount.

Authors may not request this funding if they have already obtained other funding for the same publication from an entity or institution other than the University of Barcelona. This restriction does not apply to institutional discounts offered to University of Barcelona researchers.

To apply for funding, fill in the online form and submit the application through Seu Electrònica (University of Barcelona identification required), being mandatory the following documents:

A copy of the article acceptance letter (mandatory).
The corresponding invoice describing the publication charges (mandatory).
A copy of the accepted article showing the authors' affiliations (mandatory).

Annexes

Before applying for funding, please carefully read the following:

a) Requirements that apply to journals:

Journals must be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
They must be members of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, or adhere to its Code of Conduct.
They must provide full Open access. Accordingly, articles to be published in hybrid journals, where only some articles are open access, are not eligible for funding.
Their article publication fees must be public.
They must have a payment exemption policy that applies in certain financial circumstances.

b) Obligations that apply to funding recipients:

Funding recipients must publish their articles in the University of Barcelona’s institutional repository.
They must make the necessary updates to their Curricul@SIRA profile.
Whenever possible, they must mention that they have benefited from this funding in the acknowledgments section of their article.

c) Decision announcing funding programme 2025. [Catalan]

Application form (University of Barcelona identification required). [Catalan]

List of grants given to University of Barcelona authors for Open access publishing [Catalan]

Ajuts per publicar en accés obert (2024)

Ajuts per publicar en accés obert (2023)

Ajuts per publicar en accés obert (2022)

Ajuts per publicar en accés obert (2021)

Ajuts per publicar en accés obert (2020)

Ajuts per publicar en accés obert (2019)

Ajuts per publicar en accés obert (2018)

Ajuts per publicar en accés obert (2017)

Ajuts per publicar en accés obert (2016)