University Library

Framework agreements with publishers

Depending on the publication type, Open Access publication charges (= APC Article Processing Charges) are treated differently:

APCs in pure OA journals may be subsidized.
Depending on the existing contract with the publisher, OA publishing in hybrid journals is included, discounted, or must be paid for in full. Fees of transformation contracts are centrally financed and/or, if applicable, allocated on a flat-rate basis (analogous to existing subscription contracts): no costs are incurred for the individual authors.

Regardless, there are publishers who will bill you individually per item. Others bill the APCs via a central collective invoice to the university library. The latter is a formal step that does not allow any conclusions regarding central cost absorption. If applicable, the UB will continue to bill in full (plus the applicable 19% tax) after publication. On the other hand, you will find contract offers on the publishers' homepages that the UB has not joined.

Further notes.

All this information refers only to the OA publication costs - color and page charges, review fees, overlength fees, etc. are additional services and will be billed directly to you in addition, if applicable.

As a rule, authors - as long as the article has not yet been published - can influence the license with which they publish their article.
Tübingen University Library recommends the Creative Commons module CC-BY or another Open Content license of the same scope.
The NC license module in particular does not meet the requirements for an Open Access publication in the true sense. You can read more about this here. If you need support, please ask at the UB.

American Chemical Society (ACS)

Pure Open Access Journals:
Based on the existing contract, the corresponding authors of the institution publish unrestricted free of charge in the pure Open Access journals. Centralized billing to the University Library, you will not receive individual billing downstream. 

Hybrid Journals:
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option does not affect the costs - you will not be charged.

American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

Pure Open Access Journals:
No contract between ASM and the University of Tübingen.

Hybrid Journals:
Based on the existing contract, corresponding authors of the institution publish unrestricted free of charge in the research journals:

  • Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
  • Applied and Environmental Microbiology
  • Infection and Immunity
  • Journal of Bacteriology
  • Journal of Clinical Microbiology
  • Journal of Virology

(Note: This is not a Transformative Agreement as defined by cOAlition S.)

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

Pure Open Access journals:
Based on the existing contract, the corresponding authors of the institution publish unrestricted free of charge in the pure Open Access journals. Centralized billing to the University Library, you will not receive individual billing downstream. 

Hybrid journals: 
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option does not affect the costs - you will not be charged.

Please submit with your university email address, otherwise your article cannot be assigned to our contract.

BioMed Central BMC

The membership partnership model with BMC has ended.
The title portfolio is now covered by Springer Nature's Institutional Open Access Agreement (see there).

BMJ

Pure Open Access Journals:
Corresponding authors of the institution receive a 15% discount on list APCs.
Central APC invoicing to the University Library. 
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Hybrid Journals: 
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option for research articles does not affect the costs - you will not be charged. 

Special case: The BMJ 
15% discount on the list APC for research articles, pass-on of the discounted costs in full. Other article types are not covered by the contract.

Choice of CC-BY license:
Please indicate the Open Access Publication Fund of the University of Tübingen at the time of submission. At BMJ it is deposited that funded articles are published with CC-BY.
("Does your paper need to be published with reuse permitted as per the CC BY license?" - "Yes!")

When registering in ScholarOne, please select the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (Ringgold 9188) as the associated institution so that the article can be assigned to the contract.

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Pure Open Access journals:
Based on the existing contract, the corresponding authors of the institution publish unrestricted free of charge in the pure Open Access journals. Centralized billing to the University Library, you will not receive individual billing downstream. 

Hybrid journals: 
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option does not affect the costs - you will not be charged.

Company of Biologists

Pure Open Access Journals:
No contract between The Company of Biologists and the University of Tübingen.

Hybrid Journals:
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option in the journals

  • Development
  • Journal of Cell Science
  • Journal of Experimental Biology

does not affect the costs - you will not be charged.

copernicus

Pure Open Access Journals:
In Journals with a fixed APC, corresponding authors of the institution receive a 10% discount on the list price.
In Journals with a per-page-fee no discounts are agreed, individual reductions are possible.
Central APC invoicing to the university library for corresponding authors of the institution. 
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

De Gruyter

Pure Open Access journals: 
Corresponding authors of the institution receive a discount of 20% on the list APCs.
Central APC invoicing to the University Library. 
After deducting the subsidy from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Hybrid Journals: 
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option for journals in the humanities and social sciences package we have licensed does not affect the costs - you will not be charged. Please inquire whether your journal is covered or not.

Elsevier / Cell Press / The Lancet

Pure Open Access Journals:
Corresponding authors of the institution receive a 20% discount on list APCs of Elsevier Fully Gold Open Access journals and a 15% discount on the list list APCs of Fully Gold Cell Press and The Lancet journals due to the DEAL contract.
Central APC invoicing to the University Library.
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Hybrid journals: 
Under the DEAL agreement with Elsevier we pay a fixed price for each article that is published by a corresponding author from our institution. This covers the Open Access option for the corresponding authors and access to more than 2.500 Elsevier journals for the university. The costs are partially passed on to the faculties. Opting out of the open access option does not reduce these costs.

After acceptance, please select “University of Tübingen” or “University Hospital Tübingen” from the drop-down menu in the publication workflow as the associated institution (“contract partner”) so that your article is assigned to the DEAL agreement.

The responsibility for costs lies explicitly with the institution at which the majority of the research for the article was conducted.

Frontiers

Pure Open Access journals: 
Eligible authors of the institution receive 10% discount on the list APCs. This discount may be combined with individual discounts.
Central APC invoicing to the University Library. 
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Hindawi

Pure Open Access Journals:
The majority of Hindawi journals fall under the Wiley DEAL contract: corresponding authors of the institution will receive a 20% discount on list APCs.
Central APC invoicing to the University Library. 
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.
Only one corresponding author (CA) can be specified in the submission workflow at Hindawi. This means: the author who is eligible (corresponding or first author of the institution) must submit and select the affiliation correctly.

Hogrefe

Pure Open Access Journals:
Corresponding authors of the institution receive a 25% discount on list APCs of the journals 

  • European Journal of Psychology Open
  • Psychological Test Adaptation and Development (PTAD)
  • Sports Psychiatry - Journal of Sports and Exercise Psychiatry
  • Rorschachiana (Please note: No support from the Publication Fund for this journal, as it is not listed in the DOAJ)

Central APC invoicing to the University Library. 
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Hybrid Journals: 
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option for journals in the contract package does not affect the costs - you will not be charged.

JMIR

Based on the existing contract, the corresponding authors of the institution publish unrestricted free of charge in JMIR journals. Centralized billing to the University Library, you will not receive individual billing downstream. 

MDPI

Pure Open Access Journals:
Corresponding authors of the institution receive a 30% discount on list APCs. Review vouchers can be combined.
Central APC invoicing to the university library for corresponding authors of the institution. 
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Please note - not all MDPI journals are eligible for funding. In 2024, some journals have lost DOAJ status.

Microbiology Society

Based on the existing contract, corresponding authors of the institution publish unrestricted free of charge in the journals of the Microbiology Society.

Centralized billing to the University Library, you will not receive individual billing downstream.

Please submit with your university email address, otherwise your article cannot be assigned to our contract.

Nature

Pure Open Access journals:
The Springer Nature DEAL contract applies for the pure Open Access journals of the Nature portfolio.

Hybrid journals: 
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option does not affect the costs - you will not be charged.

Open Library of Humanities (OLH)

The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is a nonprofit open access publisher for the humanities and social sciences.
OLH is funded by an international library consortium. Authors do not incur publication fees because Tübingen University Library supports the project.
The OLH publishes the megajournal Open Library of Humanities (comparable to PLoS one for the life sciences), provides a platform for nearly 30 journals in the humanities and social sciences, and supports teams of editors who wish to convert their journal to publication in Fair Open Access.
Link to the title list.

PNAS - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Hybrid Open Access at PNAS:
You can choose between immediate Open Access or delayed Open Access for your publication.
For immediate Open Access publishing, you have the choice between CC BY-NC-ND or CC BY license and get a discound based on our contract.
Alternatively, your publication can appear in delayed Open Access. With delayed Open Access, all articles are published under CC BY-NC-ND license after a delay of 6 months - before that, they are only visible to PNAS subscribers.

You can find the current prices on the PNAS website.

(Note: The University of Tübingen has not joined the Transformative Agreement as defined by cOAlition S).

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Corresponding authors of the institution publish unrestricted free of charge in the following journals:

  • PLOS ONE
  • PLOS Complex Systems
  • PLOS Computational Biology
  • PLOS Digital Health
  • PLOS Genetics
  • PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
  • PLOS Pathogens
  • PLOS Ecosystems
  • PLOS Aging and Health

Centralized billing to the University Library, you will not receive individual billing downstream.

For all other journals you will receive an individual invoice from the publisher. Please submit publisher invoices to UB for payment.
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

When registering in the Editorial Manager, please select the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (Ringgold 9188) as the associated institution so that the article can be assigned to the contract.

Royal Society of Chemistry

Pure Open Access journals:
Based on the existing contract, the corresponding authors of the institution publish unrestricted free of charge in the pure Open Access journals. Centralized billing to the University Library, you will not receive individual billing downstream. 

Hybrid journals: 
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option does not affect the costs - you will not be charged.

Please submit with your university email address, otherwise your article cannot be assigned to our contract.

Royal Society of London

Pure Open Access journals:
Based on the existing contract, the corresponding authors of the institution publish unrestricted free of charge in the pure Open Access journals. Centralized billing to the University Library, you will not receive individual billing downstream. 

Hybrid journals: 
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option does not affect the costs - you will not be charged.

Sage

Pure Open Access Journals:
Corresponding authors of the institution receive a 20% discount on list APCs.
Individual itemized billing on the part of the publisher. Please submit publisher invoices to UB for payment.
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Hybrid journals: 
​​​​​​​For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option does not affect the costs - you will not be charged. 
Please note, for some IOS Press journals a publication charge is raised. This fee also applies if you opt out of open access.

Due to our contract you always have the possibility to choose the CC-BY license!

Science Advances (AAAS)

Pure open access journal Science Advances: 
Corresponding authors of the institution receive a 15% discount on list APCs at Science Advances.
Individual itemized billing on the part of the publisher. Please submit publisher invoices to UB for payment.
After deducting the subsidy from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

SCOAP³-DH – High-Energy Physics

Since 2014, an international consortium led by CERN has been working to support open access in the field of high-energy physics (HEP). Tübingen University Library is financially involved in this project as part of an agreement between German universities.

Open Access publishing in these journals is supported at no cost for corresponding authors of the institution through the University Library’s participation at SCOAP³, if the article was posted on arXiv with on e of the primary categories hep-ex, hep-lat, hep-ph or hep-th:

  • Acta Physica Polonica B (APPB), Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
  • Advances in High Energy Physics (AHEP), Wiley
  • Chinese Physics C (CPC), IOP Publishing
  • The European Physical Journal C (EPJC), Springer Nature
  • The Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP), Springer Nature
  • Nuclear Physics B (NPB), Elsevier
  • Physics Letters B (PLB), Elsevier
  • Physical Review C (PRC), APS
  • Physical Review D (PRD), APS
  • Physical Review Letters (PRL), APS
  • Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP), Oxford University Press

In that case you will not receive individual billing downstream.

The project is currently running in its fourth phase until the end of 2027.

SocioHub

Four journals are published in Diamond Open Access through the SocioHub consortium, which is managed by the Fachinformationsdienst Soziologie. 

The University Library of Tübingen is financially involved in this project as part of an agreement between universities in Germany.

There are no publication fees for articles in the following journals:

  • Gender
  • sub\urban
  • Open Gender Journal
  • Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung

Springer Nature / Biomed Central / Springer Open

Pure Open Access Journals:
Corresponding authors of the institution receive in most cases a discount on list APCs (capped by contract, if applicable) due to the DEAL contract.
Central APC invoicing to the University Library.
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Hybrid journals: 
Under the DEAL agreement with Springer we pay a fixed price for each article that is published by a corresponding author from our institution. This covers the Open Access option for the corresponding authors and access to more than 2.000 Springer journals for the university. The costs are partially passed on to the faculties. Opting out of the open access option does not reduce these costs.

Exception for the medical specialist journals (“Facharztzeitschriften"): non-research articles are generally not eligible, nor are invited/solicited research articles.

The responsibility for costs lies explicitly with the institution at which the majority of the research for the article was conducted.

A separate agreement applies to the Nature-branded journals.

Taylor & Francis

Pure Open Access journals:
Corresponding authors of the institution receive a 15% discount on the list APCs.
Central APC invoicing to the University Library.
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Hybrid journals: 
For corresponding authors of the institution choosing the Open Access option does not affect the costs - you will not be charged.

The agreement between the University of Tübingen and Taylor and Trancis is not listed separately on the publisher's website, but is listed as a sub-item of the agreement with the ZBW consortium (Forum13+).

Wiley

Pure Open Access Journals: 
Corresponding authors of the institution receive a 20% discount on list APCs.
Central APC invoicing to the University Library. 
After deducting the grant from the Open Access Publication Fund, you will be charged for the remaining costs after publication.

Hybrid journals:  
Under the DEAL agreement with Wiley we pay a fixed price for each article that is published by a corresponding author from our institution. This covers the Open Access option for the corresponding authors and access to more than 1.300 Wiley journals for the university. The costs are partially passed on to the faculties. Opting out of the open access option does not reduce these costs.

The responsibility for costs lies explicitly with the institution at which the majority of the research for the article was conducted.