Open Publishing Support Fund

Update: As of April 2025, the Open Publishing Support Fund has been fulfilled and is now closed. Please check back in late summer 2025 for the application to reopen.

The Open Publishing Support Fund (OPSF) improves access to research produced at the University of Tennessee. The OPSF provides support of up to $1800 toward article processing charges (APCs) for UTK researchers publishing in fully open journals. 

The OPSF is a limited fund, distributed on a first come, first served basis. To attempt to support as many researchers as possible, we ask that researchers check with their publishers to see if discounts (via UTK agreements, memberships, or individual discount) are available to lower APCs before applying for the OPSF. Please see UTK’s agreements and discounts here: https://www.lib.utk.edu/openaccess/open-publishing-discounts/

For questions or support, please contact OAprograms@utk.edu

Applying to the Open Publishing Support Fund

Publication Requirements

• Manuscript must already be accepted by a journal in order to apply.
• Application must be submitted within three months of date on publisher invoice.
• Manuscript must be accepted by fully-open (not select-open) peer-reviewed journals that are:
  • listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ),
  • published by members of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA),  
  • or are listed as fully open in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database.

Limitations

• Funding maximum: $1800 per request. The applicant is responsible for funds above this amount. 
• Only two (2) OPSF awards per research lab per year. 
• A graduate student may seek funding once per fiscal year for articles solely authored by graduate student(s).

Other Considerations

• Applicants with external funding should exhaust external funds before applying for the OPSF.
• Application must be submitted by UTK faculty, staff, or graduate student.

The Open Publishing Support Fund is co-sponsored by the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development and the University Libraries.

Please note that application responses may take up to 14 business days.