Fairer Play: Addressing Challenges with Discretionary APC-Waiver Programs
Location
Online
Start Date
21-10-2025 12:55 PM
End Date
21-10-2025 1:35 PM
Description
Scholarly publishers are increasingly adopting pay-to-publish open access (OA) business models that levy Article Processing Charges (APCs) on the author side in order to make articles available OA on the reader side. Given APCs can be cost prohibitive, publishers have employed strategies to redress economic inequities: broadly, programs aimed at authors to fully or partially waive APCs and programs aimed at libraries, such as membership discounts and read-and-publish deals, to offset or lower the fees. Libraries have responded in kind by launching APC subvention funds, by joining the memberships, and by signing the read-and-publish deals. Yet, these strategies have limitations and challenges of their own. In this presentation, I focus in particular on publishers’ discretionary waiver programs. While recent guidelines from COPE (2025) and OASPA (2024) make recommendations to publishers, I discuss how libraries can play a role in reducing the onerousness of discretionary waiver programs on authors. My presentation will explain the basic contours of discretionary waivers, identify common and thorny features, and show how libraries can help place authors in a better position to receive discretionary waivers when they need them.
Fairer Play: Addressing Challenges with Discretionary APC-Waiver Programs
Online
Scholarly publishers are increasingly adopting pay-to-publish open access (OA) business models that levy Article Processing Charges (APCs) on the author side in order to make articles available OA on the reader side. Given APCs can be cost prohibitive, publishers have employed strategies to redress economic inequities: broadly, programs aimed at authors to fully or partially waive APCs and programs aimed at libraries, such as membership discounts and read-and-publish deals, to offset or lower the fees. Libraries have responded in kind by launching APC subvention funds, by joining the memberships, and by signing the read-and-publish deals. Yet, these strategies have limitations and challenges of their own. In this presentation, I focus in particular on publishers’ discretionary waiver programs. While recent guidelines from COPE (2025) and OASPA (2024) make recommendations to publishers, I discuss how libraries can play a role in reducing the onerousness of discretionary waiver programs on authors. My presentation will explain the basic contours of discretionary waivers, identify common and thorny features, and show how libraries can help place authors in a better position to receive discretionary waivers when they need them.
