PeerJ's alternative to APCs

PeerJ is pleased to announce an agreement with University of Kansas (KU) Libraries to join PeerJ’s three-year fixed-term membership programme, giving their faculty a high-quality and sustainable open access publishing option. Under the agreement, which provides an alternative to article processing charges (APCs) for open access, KU Libraries will cover the cost of the three-year membership in its entirety, which means that there will be no out-of-pocket fees for KU authors to publish in PeerJ’s journal portfolio. 

“We are very happy that the team at KU Libraries see PeerJ memberships for what they are: beneficial to their researchers, and a cost-effective approach to open access that provides an alternative to traditional APCs,” says Nathaniel Gore, PeerJ’s Director of Communities. “We are delighted to renew our partnership, under a new membership model, with KU.”

“The University of Kansas has a strong tradition of embracing open access through a variety of initiatives, many of which are based in KU Libraries. By enrolling in the PeerJ institutional membership programme, KU Libraries is expanding our open and sustainable scholarship initiatives, providing direct support to KU authors to publish in PeerJ journals at no cost, by covering author member fees," says Josh Bolick, Head of the David Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright, University of Kansas.

PeerJ three-year fixed-term membership, priced at $239 per author, is valid from the date of an author’s first publication and for a further 36 months, during which they can publish two further articles at no additional cost, giving authors more flexibility as to when they publish. When authors use their full complement of three publications, the per-author cost borne by KU Libraries averages out at under $80 per article. Under the agreement, any co-authors must hold a PeerJ membership in order to publish; any lifetime memberships held by KU-affiliated authors remain valid. 

“We remain confident that our membership options provide the best value-for-money to researchers who want to publish open access, and we look forward to continue working with KU researchers who choose to publish in any of our seven journals,” says PeerJ’s Publisher and Co-Founder, Pete Binfield.

The University of Kansas become the sixth institution to join the programme, along with UC Berkeley, the University of Ottawa, Iowa State University, the University of Sussex and Western University.