Availability of Financial Support for Open Access Publishing in IAVS Journals
Dear IAVS members,
I am writing as Chair of the IAVS Publications Committee and on behalf of the IAVS Governing Board to make sure that you are aware of the financial support that may be available to assist you in publishing your work as an Open Access article in our IAVS-owned journals. Open Access publication allows anyone in the world to read and download your paper, without paying a subscription or access fees.
As you know, IAVS owns three journals, the Journal of Vegetation Science (JVS), Applied Vegetation Science (AVS), and Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS). Both JVS and AVS are published by John Wiley and Sons, Inc. (Wiley) and VCS is published by Pensoft Publishers (Pensoft).
Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science
JVS and AVS are published under a hybrid model, where authors have the choice to either publish a traditional article, which is only accessible to readers with a personal or an institutional subscription, or to pay an Article Publication Charge (APC) and have their paper published Open Access. Currently, the APC for JVS and AVS is $3,910 USD (approximately £3,090 GBP or €3,580 EUR). In many cases, authors do not need to pay the APC themselves. Wiley has negotiated many Transformational Agreements, under which all or part of the APC is paid by the author’s institution. Some of these agreements are large-scale (e.g. Projekt DEAL, which covers more than 900 academic institutions in Germany), while others include smaller groups of institutions within particular countries. In many cases, the participating institution will cover the entire APC.
To date, Wiley has negotiated open access partnerships with over 2,200 institutions across 23 countries and new agreements are constantly being developed. Up to date information about Transformational Agreements can be found at the following link:
To find out if your institution will cover all or part of the APC for your proposed paper in JVS or AVS, please consult the information at this link:
If your institution is not part of a Transformational Agreement with Wiley, you may consider contacting your institution’s librarian or other relevant administrative officials to find out if an agreement is planned or is currently being negotiated. If not, you might encourage your institution to explore participation in such an agreement with Wiley.
When applying for research funding, you may inquire whether your granting agency allows the costs of publishing, such as APCs, to be included in the grant budget. Increasingly, granting agencies are encouraging or even requiring that all papers arising from funded research must be published Open Access.
Vegetation Classification and Survey
Note – announcement regarding VCS fees was updated on July 31, 2023; please check the update here.
VCS, which started in 2020, is published under a gold Open Access model. This means that all papers are published Open Access and readers do not have to pay subscriptions or access fees. Information about the schedule of APCs for VCS can be found at this link:
https://vcs.pensoft.net/about#Article-Processing-Charges
IAVS Council had agreed to support VCS financially until 30 June, 2023. For articles first-authored by an IAVS member submitted up until that date, IAVS paid the APC if the authors had no financial support from their institution or research grants to pay the APC. From 1 July, 2023, a base APC of €1,100 EUR (approximately $1,200 USD or £950 GBP) will apply for a standard-length article (11-20 pages), but IAVS members will receive a 10% discount. Authors from low-income countries or who can demonstrate financial hardship will be eligible for discounts ranging from 40-80%.
If you intend to submit a paper to VCS, you should consider including APCs in the budget when applying for research funding.
If you have any questions about financial support for Open Access publishing in our journals, please contact me.
Best wishes,
Peter Minchin
IAVS Publications Committee Chair
This post is also available as a News item at the official website of the International Association for Vegetation Science: https://www.iavs.org/news/644760/Availability-of-Financial-Support-for-Open-Access-Publishing-in-IAVS-Journals.htm
