The UPV has signed Transformative Agreements with publishers that allow both 1) to access to read the contents published in their journals and 2) to have a certain number of APCs (Article Processing Charges) for open access publication at no additional cost. At the national level, the UPV also participates since 2021 in Transformative Agreements signed between the CRUE-CSIC with some publishers.
Agreements are currently underway with IEEE, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Institute of Physics, RSC, Springer,Wiley and ACS.
The process of applying for funding for a publication begins at the stage of submitting the article for publication, when the corresponding author indicates that he or she is UPV staff. If the journal is included in the transformative agreement the journal platform will inform about the possibility of that particular document to be Open Access funded by the university. WARNING: In some publishers/journals, there are costs for extra pages or color that are not covered by the Transformative Agreements and must be paid by the authors.
The financing requirements are:
- Funding availability
- That the corresponding author and authors of the UPV include their affiliation and correspondence e-mail in compliance with the official UPV regulations.
- To acknowledge the support including the text “Funding for open access charge: CRUE-Universitat Politècnica de València” whenever possible.
- To upload the document in Senia, after publication, for dissemination in the institutional repository. Otherwise, the next request for funding by any of the UPV authors will not be denied.
Before submitting an article, we recommend that you check the quality indicators of the journal in the link shown in the table (JCR, MIAR, Scopus and SJR).
Publish in publishers with transformative agreement: instructions for authors
Steps to be followed by researchers in the publication process vary according to the journal:
- Springer Nature.
- Wiley (hybrid journals): articles accepted from 23 April in the hybrid journals included in the agreement will automatically be offered free open access publication. In addition, from mid-May until June, the publisher will run a retroactive campaign to convert to OA free of charge, which will be offered to corresponding authors whose articles have been accepted since 1 January 2025 and have remained under subscription (not open).
- IEEE. For IEEE to offer you the OA funded by the UPV, you must include the e-mail domain: upv.es or the Ringgold ID 16774.
- Cambridge University Press.
- IOP: in the publication process on the publisher’s platform, when the article has already been accepted for publication, if the designated affiliation is Universitat Politècnica de València and the email is in the format login@xxx.upv.es, you can request that the APC costs be assumed by the IOP-UPV agreement. Help from IOP.
- Oxford University Press.
- RSC: in the publication process in the publisher’s platform, when the article has already been accepted for publication, if the designated affiliation is Universitat Politècnica de València and the e-mail is in the format login@xxx.upv.es, you can request that the APC expenses be assumed by the RSC-CRUE agreement.
- ACS: ACS instructions on how to apply for open access funding for publications.
- Elsevier: Elsevier (hybrid journals).
Choice of Creative Commons license agreement type:
- CC-BY is the default recommendation.
- CC-BY-SA and CC0 are acceptable alternatives.
Other agreements with publishers
In addition to the signing of transformative agreements with publishers, the UPV has also reached other agreements for open access publishing without having to pay for the publication. Article Processing Charge (APC) or at least at a discount:
- Elsevier 10% APC discount on some Elsevier journals. Applicable if the corresponding author belongs to the UPV. The editing platform informs if the article is eligible for this discount and in such a case, if the author wants to publish openly, he/she only has to accept the discount and follow the ordinary editing flow.
- Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI): authors who are members of the UPV community and publish in journals published by MDPI will automatically receive a 10% discount on the APC of the journal. In addition, there is also a 10% discount on the cost of publication of books and book chapters. For further information
- Institute of Physics (IOP): 10% discount on the APC for reviewers for each article reviewed. Click here for more information
- SCOAP3 Publication, free of charge for researchers, in 11 prestigious journals related to particle physics and high energies. It also provides open access to a multitude of specialized e-books. More information
- Royal Society of Chemistry (CSR): 15% discount on the list of GOLD magazines that you can download by clicking here. RSC Gold
- IEEE 20% discount on the list of GOLD magazines that you can download by clicking here. IEEE
- Annual Reviews. The UPV contributes to the Annual Reviews S2O (Subscribe to Open) project, maintaining the subscription it has been making in recent years.
It should not be forgotten that there is also the possibility of publishing in open access journals without publication costs for the authors.
More information on transformative agreements
Open access to scientific publications is one of the cornerstones of Open Science. We are currently witnessing a change in the model of scientific communication, which is moving from the traditional pay-to-read to a pay-to-publish model. In addition, more and more research funding agencies require the results of the projects they fund to be in open access. This is the case of those agencies that subscribe to Plan S, including the European Commission. The Commission’s commitment to immediate open access to publications affects the beneficiaries of the Horizon Europe Program.
In line with the Open Science proposal, and in order to make it easier for researchers to comply with open access mandates, the UPV is signing the following transformative agreements with leading academic publishers.
On the other hand, other type of agreements have also been signed to reduce the cost of open access publishing.
The transformative agreements signed between publishers and research institutions follow a Read & Publish model that allows:
- Access journal contents. The concept of subscription is maintained.
- Publication of the final version of the article in the journal through immediate Open Access at no cost for the researcher.
According to the ESAC In addition, transformative agreements have several characteristics:
- They are temporary and transitory as they should serve as a pathway for the change towards a model of scientific communication in Open Access.
- The authors retain their intellectual property rights and may disseminate their work through Creative Commons licenses.
- They are transparent as opposed to agreements based on a subscription model. The terms of the transformative agreements signed in different countries are published on ESAC website.
- Restrain the rising costs of scientific communication. This is in line with the Commitments of universities to Open Science drafted by the CRUE and the document Towards open access by default of the FECYT.
- They should make it easier for to align with the needs of authors and publishers for example, by facilitating compliance with the mandates of funding agencies.
More information on CRUE agreements by publisher:
Support for open publication of predoctoral researchers (PAID-12-24)
Grants are available to cover the cost of publication in research journals as an incentive measure for open access within the framework of the Vice-Rectorate for Research’s grant program (PAID 12-24).
For more information, you can consult the Policonsulta.