Journals Business Models

There are three possible ways of disseminating open-access scientific publications:

– the Green or Self-Archiving Road involves the author depositing their work in an open archive platform such as HAL, Arxiv or RePec (articles, papers, theses, HDRs, etc.).
– the Golden Road involves journals being published as open access, either immediately or on a deferred basis (embargoes are possible). The preferred economic model for these journals is for authors to pay publication fees, also known as Article Processing Charges (APCs).
– the diamond road: journals are open access immediately, with no publication fees for authors (free for readers and authors). These journals are financed via subsidies, subscriptions or memberships, for example from research organisations or universities.

Business Models

Journals adopt various business models to support their open access distribution.

– One option is subsidy or sponsorship, whereby institutions take full responsibility for financing the journal (this is the most common model for open access journals).
– Another model is paying author or article processing charges, where content is made available to readers. In this model, the journal asks the author to pay a publication fee, which varies from title to title and from publisher to publisher. These fees are generally paid by the laboratory or funding body in the case of a research project. The average publication fee is estimated at €1,000–1,500 per article.
– In the ‘freemium’ model, readers have access to article content, but services associated with publication are subject to membership or subscription (this is the model adopted by OpenEdition).
– With the subscription model, the content is made freely available once the subscribing institutions have reached the amount required to cover open access.

Article Processing Charges

Article Processing Charges (APCs) are charged by publishers in return for making articles freely available. They correspond to the “author pays” economic model.

APCs apply to :

– journals that are natively open access,
– “hybrid” journals. These journals are accessible by subscription, but it is possible for an author to publish his or her article in open access in exchange for payment of APC (“Open Choice”). These journals therefore combine 2 sources of funding: subscriptions (the “reader pays” model) and APCs (the “author pays” model).

Native Open Access Journals

Not all of these journals require an APC. The Directory of Open Access Journals lists all open-access journals. You can filter your search to include only journals without APC.

Hybrid Journals

The hybrid journal model is widely criticised by the scientific community, particularly mathematicians. Several organisations (CNRS, CEA, INRIA and Sciences Po) and universities (Lille, Reims, Sorbonne and Strasbourg) advise against using this model.

Coalition S, which unites the primary European research funding bodies, including the ANR, and has developed a plan to promote open science, rejects this model (Article 8: ‘Funding bodies do not support the “hybrid” publication model’) for several reasons.

UGA supports this approach.

Furthermore, authors can publish their articles without paying an APC in a subscribed journal and deposit the manuscript validated for publication (or post-print) in HAL.

Discounts on APCs can be negotiated with publishers as part of their review of subscription rates.

Here is the publishers list for which our subscription entitles you to discounts on the APC amount:
– ACS: 25% discount
– EDP Sciences: no APCs in 29 journals – for further information, see Couperin 2022-2026 National Agreement
– Elsevier: APCs are covered in 2480 “eligible” journals (national quota) – for further information, see Couperin 2024-2027 National Agreement
– RSC: hybrid journals: APCs are covered within a annual national quota, then 15% discount ; Gold Open Access journals: 15% discount. For further information, see Couperin National Agreement
– Science Advance : 7.5% discount on any submitted article
– Wiley : APCs are covered  (national quota) – for further information, see Couperin 2022-2024 National Agreement, to be continued in 2025

Within Libraries for Open Science Support (BAPSO), the Numerical Resources team is here to help researchers identify existing APC discounts from different publishers. Contact her at this address: sos-publications[at]univ-grenoble-alpes.fr.

For further information: All about the ‘Author pays’ model (in French) (FAQ). This FAQ from the Couperin consortium’s open science group provides recommendations and a list of tools.