Institutional Open Access Agreements

Agreements to help you publish open access

The Library subscribes to a number of institutional memberships that reduce or cover the cost of open access publication for all academic staff and PhD researchers.

With all the below offers it is advisable to get in touch with us as soon as possible as some of these discounts and vouchers cannot be applied retrospectively.

* A hybrid journal is a journal in which some articles are freely available (after the author has paid an additional fee to make Open Access possible), while other articles within the journal are only accessible by subscription to the journal or payment to read individual articles.

** The corresponding author is the individual who take primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review and publication process. They are not necessarily the first author and this is different to a contributing author

*** Some journals will levy page and colour charges in addition to open access charges, these cannot be paid for by LJMU using our deals below and we do not have a fund to cover these. Please check with your journal before submitting to check for additional charges.

The Library has institutional memberships with the following publishers:

• American Chemical Society (ACS) (Jan 2022 - Dec 2024)

  Included: All ACS Journals (includes ACS Omega, JACS Au, the ACS Au Collection and all ACS hybrid* titles).
  
  Excluded: Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation
  
  
  

• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) (Jan 2023 – Dec 2025)

  Included: All ACM titles in the ACM digital library.
  
  Excluded: Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• American Psychological Association (APA) (Aug 2022 - Jul 2024)

  Included: APA's journals in the PsycArticles portfolio and Hogrefe hybrid* journals. In addition a 25% discount for the 3 Hogrefe fully open access (Gold) journals where you are the corresponding** author.
  
  Excluded: Hogrefe fully open access (Gold) journals (25% discount of APCs see above). Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation
  
  
  

• BMJ (Jan 2023 – Dec 2024)

  Included: Original research articles reporting on primary research and funded by UKRI, Wellcome Trust, Blood Cancer UK, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Innovate UK, Parkinson’s or Versus Arthritis UK in BMJ’s hybrid* journals. Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Excluded: BMJ’s fully open access (Gold) journals.
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation. You must include acknowledgement of one of the BMJ recognised funders (see above under Included). For full author instructions please refer to the BMJ website before submission.
  
  
  

• Cambridge University Press (Jan 2021 - Dec 2024)

  Included: All CUPs hybrid* and full open access (Gold) journals.
  
  Excluded: Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Company of Biologists (Jan 2020 - Dec 2024)

  Included: All Company of Biologists hybrid* and fully open access (Gold) journals.
  
  Excluded: Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Elsevier (Jan 2022 - Dec 2024)

  Included: Elsevier's Core hybrid* titles (including hybrid* titles in the Cell Press and Lancet Collections). Find participating journals using the Elsevier checker tool.
  
  Excluded: Elsevier's full open access (Gold) journals. Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Emerald

  Whilst they do not offer an institutional agreement to publish open access in their journals Emerald operates a zero-embargo period policy which means authors can self-archive their author accepted manuscript to an institutional repository immediately on publication. For more information about this see 'Self-Archiving' on Open Access Publishing.
  
  
  

• IOP (Jan 2020 - Dec 2025)

  Included: Primary research articles, including research papers, special issue articles, letters and review articles in hybrid* and fully open access (gold) titles (exclusions below). For a list of titles LJMU authors are able to publish in (Lists A, B and D) go to IOP open access for the UK. Please note only primary research articles are covered by the publishing agreement in Reports on Progress in Physics. 
  
  Excluded: Fully open access (Gold) journals published on behalf of the American Astronomical Society.  Page and colour charges*** (if charged). 
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Microbiology Society (Jan 2020 - Dec 2023)

  Included: All Microbiology Society titles
  
  Excluded: Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Open Book Publishers (Mar 2022 - Feb 2025)

  LJMU are members of the Open Book Publishers scheme which is an award-winning, non-profit publisher of Open Access monographs, run by academics in Cambridge and London and committed to making high-quality research freely available to readers around the world.
  
  
  

• Open Library of the Humanities (2021 - 2024)

  LJMU is a supporter of The Open Library of the Humanities (OLH). The OLH publishing platform and model ensures there are no article processing charges (APCs) for any researchers. OLH currently publishes and funds 27 journals.
  
  
  

• Oxford University Press (Jan 2024 – Dec 2025)

  Included: Research articles, review articles, brief reports and case reports in most OUP hybrid* and fully open access (Gold) journals (exclusions below).
  
  Excluded: European Heart Journal Supplements; JNCI Monographs; Journal of Computational Design and Engineering; Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics. Article-commentary types. Titles that don’t include an open access option. Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• PLOS (Jan 2021 – Dec 2024)

  Included: All PLOS titles.
  
  Excluded: Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Portland Press (Jan 2020 - Dec 2025)

  Included: All 7 Portland Press Research and Review journals.
  
  Excluded: Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Royal Society (Jan 2024 - Dec 2024)

  Included: All Royal Society’s hybrid* and fully open access journals.
  
  Excluded: Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) (Jan 2021 - Dec 2024)

  Included: Peer reviewed articles (full papers, communications and reviews) in RSCs hybrid* journals.
  
  Excluded: RSC's fully open access (Gold) journals and types of output not in the included section above. Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation both on the manuscript and in the online submission system.
  
  
  

• Sage (Jan 2020 - Dec 2024)

  Included: Sage's eligible hybrid* journals. Check the Sage website for details of eligible titles. In addition a 20% discount for fully open access (Gold) journals where you are the corresponding** author.
  
  Excluded: Sage's fully open access (Gold) journals (20% discount of APCs see above). Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Springer Nature (Jan 2023 – Dec 2025)

  Included: Springer, Nature and Palgrave hybrid* journals. Page and colour charges*** (if charged). Please see the eligible journal lists for the Springer portfolio and Nature portfolio on the Springer website.
  
  In addition a 15% discount for fully open access (Gold) journals where you are the corresponding** author.
  
  Excluded: Springer and Nature fully open access (Gold) journals.
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Taylor and Francis (Jan 2024 – December 2025)

  Included: Original research articles in Taylor and Francis hybrid* and full open access journals (exclusions below). Publishing in F1000Research and Routledge Open Research (including but not limited to Research Articles, Method Articles, Antibody Validation Articles, Reviews, Systematic Reviews, Clinical Practice Articles, Case Reports, Opinion Articles).
  
  Excluded: Dove Medical Press Titles. Titles that don’t include an open access option. Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation.
  
  
  

• Wiley (Jan 2021 - Dec 2025)

  Included: Original research and review articles in Wiley hybrid* OnlineOpen and Wiley and Hindawi fully open access (Gold) journals.
  
  Excluded: Page and colour charges*** (if charged).
  
  Instructions for authors: You must be the article's responsible corresponding author**, use your university email address and ensure you list Liverpool John Moores University as your affiliation. Please be aware that this fund is limited nationally so the terms of eligibility may change during the course of the year.