The University of Melbourne pursues opportunities to fund open scholarship, open research, and open access initiatives. Some of the initiatives currently supported by the Library are described below.
We support these initiatives alongside our open access publishing agreements and institutional repositories to foster diversity and equity in the open scholarship ecosystem.
Initiatives include open access book publishing and open access journal publishing models that do not levy author-facing open access fees regardless of affiliation. We also fund essential open infrastructure, including repositories and preprint servers, to help open up more of the research lifecycle.
Underlying principles
The open scholarship initiatives supported by the Library align with the Principles for Open Access to Research Outputs at Melbourne.
Beyond this, the Library's Scholarly Communications team used five key principles when evaluating initiatives to support financially:
Open access books
The Library supports a range of open access book publishing initiatives. These include memberships with fully open access book publishers that don't levy Book Processing Charges (BPCs), and collective funding for open access publishing with hybrid publishers.
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Type
Collective funding of open access books.
Status
Currently supporting the pilot program, 2024-2026.
Description
JSTOR has partnered with over 40 small- to medium-sized university presses for their Path to Open pilot. The program creates open access pathways for 1,000 peer-reviewed books. Included titles become fully open access three years after publication. University of Melbourne staff and students will have prior access through JSTOR.
Participating publishers include Bristol University Press, Manchester University Press, Leuven University Press, University of Michigan Press, University of Illinois Press, and Melbourne University Publishing.
Further information
JSTOR Path to Open (see participating publishers and explore the titles)
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Collective funding.
Status
Supported since 1 January 2021 (ongoing).
Description
Knowledge Unlatched aims to make more scholarship open access. Their initiatives cover academic books, journals, online resources, and open infrastructure. Libraries contribute via funding pledges to help make content permanently open access.
Supported initiatives
- KU Focus Collection 2026: Digital Lives —Technology’s Influence on Contemporary Life.
- KU Focus Collection 2026: Climate Change & Global Warming
- KU Focus Collection 2026: Global Health & Resilience
- University of Michigan Press: International Studies in Democracy 2026.
- KU Global Warming and Response Focus Collection 2025
- Language Science Press 2021-2023 & 2024-2026.
- Berghahn Open Anthro 2024-2025.
- Verfassungsblog/On Matters Constitutional 2024.
- KU Select 2024 SDG Books: Full Collection.
- Berghahn Migration and Development Studies 2022-2023.
- KU Select Journals 2021-2023.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Collective funding of open access books.
Status
Supported 2021-2023 and 2024-2026 funding cycles via Knowledge Unlatched.
Description
Language Science Press is a nonprofit scholarly publisher in the field of linguistics. They publish about 30 books each year, both open access and in print. Their operating costs are covered by supporting institutions and collective funding initiatives. This allows them to publish books open access under CC BY licences without levying Book Processing Charges (BPCs) to authors.
Further information
Language Science Press on the Knowledge Unlatched website
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Collective funding of open access books.
Status
Supported since 1 January 2021.
Description
MIT Press's Direct to Open (D2O) program enables open access publishing for selected monographs and edited collections. With contributions from supporting libraries, these new MIT Press titles are published open access at no cost to authors.
Further information
MIT Press Direct to Open (and D2O Model details).
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Library membership.
Status
Ongoing support.
Description
Founded in 2008, Open Book Publishers (OBP) is independent and fully open access. They publish peer-reviewed scholarly monographs, edited collections, textbooks, and more. OBP is a nonprofit Social Enterprise and Community Interest Company (CIC) based in the UK. Their operations rely on library memberships, grants and donations, and print sales. They do not levy open access fees to authors, who retain full copyright of their work.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Supporting library membership.
Status
Supported since 1 January 2025 (ongoing).
Description
Punctum Books is an independent, community-formed, queer- and scholar-led open access book publisher. It publishes peer-reviewed books in the humanities, social sciences, fine arts, architecture, and design. The University's membership helps Punctum Books publish open access without charging fees to authors. Punctum Books is a non-profit public benefit corporation.
Further information
Punctum Books - Supporting library membership program
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
Diamond and 'Subscribe to Open' journals
Beyond our institutional open access publishing agreements, we seek to support models that eliminate Article Processing Charges (APCs) for all authors. This includes support for diamond open access journals and Subscribe to Open (S2O) initiatives.
The University also publishes several scholar-led diamond open access journals. Some of these are showcased on our scholar-led journals page.
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Type
Subscribe to Open (S2O).
Status
Supported since 1 January 2025 (ongoing).
Description
The Library is maintaining its subscriptions to American Physiological Society (APS) S2O journals, helping them make their content fully open access. Under the S2O model, no authors face open access publishing fees if annual subscription targets are met.
March 2025 update: APS have announced that their 2025 target was reached. The full year's content in the above journals will be published open access.
Coverage
Unlimited open access publishing for all authors in the following APS S2O journals:
- American Journal of Physiology - Cell Physiology
- American Journal of Physiology - Endocrinology and Metabolism
- American Journal of Physiology - Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology
- American Journal of Physiology - Heart and Circulatory Physiology
- American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology
- American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology
- American Journal of Physiology - Renal Physiology
- Journal of Applied Physiology
- Journal of Neurophysiology
- Physiological Genomics
Other fees
Note that APS journals continue to levy Flat Fees for some article types. These include Research Articles, Methods and Resources, and Short Reports.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Subscribe to Open (S2O).
Status
Supported since 1 January 2025 (ongoing).
Description
The Library is maintaining its subscriptions to American Society for Microbiology (ASM) S2O journals, helping them make their content fully open access. Under the S2O model, no authors face open access publishing fees if annual subscription targets are met. If ASM's sustainability targets are not met, then only articles from corresponding authors at subscribing institutions will be published open access (without authors facing APCs).
April 2025 update: ASM met their sustainability goal for all six S2O journals below. As such, they will all be publishing open access without APCs in 2026.
Coverage
Unlimited open access publishing for all authors in the following ASM journals:
- Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (AAC)
- Applied and Environmental Microbiology (AEM)
- Infection and Immunity (IAI)
- Journal of Bacteriology (JB)
- Journal of Clinical Microbiology (JCM)
- Journal of Virology (JVI)
Other fees
ASM journals continue to levy Page Charges and Supplemental Material fees. University of Melbourne corresponding authors are eligible for the discounted "2025 S2O Subscriber Rates" for each of these fees.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Subscribe to Open (S2O).
Status
Supported since 2020-2023 (dependent on journal; ongoing).
Description
The non-profit publisher Annual Reviews started converting its portfolio of journals to S2O in 2020. Their entire portfolio now follows the S2O model. In 2023 and 2024, all journal issues were published fully open access at no cost to authors. The Library maintains its subscription to the complete Annual Reviews collection to support this initiative.
Early-2025 update: "We successfully converted all 2023 and 2024 journal volumes to open access using S2O, resulting in a 2-to-3 fold increase in global readership. Our 2025 volumes are currently in production, and with continued support for S2O, will convert to OA as they publish." (AR)
Coverage
Unlimited open access publishing for all authors across all Annual Reviews journals.
Further information
Annual Reviews - Subscribe to Open
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Subscribe to Open (S2O).
Status
Supported since 2021-2022 (dependent on journal; ongoing).
Description
The University of Melbourne has been supporting Berghahn's Open Anthro program since 2021. This has enabled open access publishing for all authors without open access fees. We subscribe to two of Berghahn's S2O journals.
April 2025 update: Berghahn Open Anthro has been successfully funded for its sixth year. All 2025 volumes of their S2O journals will be published open access.
Learn more about the BOA-S2O initiative in their 2021 blog post, "The Berghahn Open Anthro Journey: Embarking on a Discipline-Driven Equitable Open Access Initiative".
Coverage
The Berghahn Open Anthro program includes 16 anthropology journals. The University of Melbourne currently subscribes to two of these:
- Focaal
- Social Anthropology | Anthropologie Sociale
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Subscribe to Open (S2O).
Status
Supported since 1 January 2025 (ongoing).
Description
In recent years, De Gruyter has been converting a growing number of titles from hybrid (subscription) to S2O. The Library is maintaining its subscriptions to De Gruyter's S2O journals, helping them make their content fully open access. Under the S2O model, no authors face open access publishing fees if annual subscription targets are met.
Coverage
De Gruyter's S2O portfolio currently contains 58 journals in total. We are currently subscribed to 14 of these S2O journals. See De Gruyter's S2O Journal List for details.
Further information
De Gruyter - Subscribe to Open
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Subscribe to Open (S2O).
Status
Supported since 1 January 2025 (ongoing).
Description
Edinburgh University Press (EUP) has been converting journals from hybrid (subscription) to S2O. The Library is maintaining its subscriptions to EUP's S2O journals, helping them make their content fully open access. Under the S2O model, no authors face open access publishing fees if annual subscription targets are met.
Coverage
We are currently subscribed to two EUP S2O journals: Gothic Studies and Modernist Cultures. The full list of EUP S2O journals can be found on the EUP website.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Library membership
Status
Supported 2026 via SCOSS.
Description
Episciences is a complete platform for editing and publishing scientific overlay journals covering all disciplines. All Episciences journals are diamond open access journals, meaning there are no access fees and no publication fees.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Subscribe to Open (S2O)
Status
Supported since 1 January 2026 (ongoing).
Description
The Library has commenced a subscription to Katina, helping them make their content fully open access. Katina’s mission is to advance library and information science. It covers key topics, emerging trends, and transformative technologies and products and explores the ongoing evolution of library practice.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Subscribe to Open (S2O).
Status
Supported since 1 January 2024 (ongoing).
Description
In 2024, Mathematical Sciences Publishers (MSP) converted five of their leading journals to S2O. The University of Melbourne supports this S2O initiative through ongoing subscriptions to MSP titles, helping the journals make their content fully open. Under the S2O model, no authors face open access publishing fees if annual subscription targets are met.
Early 2025 update: MSP has announced that their 2025 sustainability targets were met. All 2025 articles in their S2O journals will be published open access with no author charges.
Coverage
Unlimited open access publishing for all authors in five MSP journals:
- Geometry & Topology
- Algebraic & Geometric Topology
- Algebra & Number Theory
- Analysis & PDE
- Pacific Journal of Mathematics
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Library membership.
Status
Supported since 1 January 2025 (ongoing).
Description
The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is a fully open access journal publisher. None of their journals levy fees to authors, being free for readers and authors alike. Currently operated by Birkbeck, University of London, OLH is scholar-led, community-owned, non-profit, and highly reputable. The University's supporting membership helps provide authors and readers around the world with access to OLH journals.
Further information
Open Library of Humanities - Supporters
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Subscribe to Open (S2O).
Status
Supported since 1 January 2025 (ongoing).
Description
Project MUSE is working with a range of non-profit publishers in their S2O program. Through the program, many of the humanities and social sciences journals in the Project MUSE collection are now publishing under the S2O model. In 2025, 26 publishers (mostly university presses) are participating in the S2O program.
March 2025 update: The Project MUSE S2O program has their met its 2025 funding goal. All S2O journals will publish their 2025 content open access at no cost to authors.
Coverage
In total, 102 journals are participating in the Project MUSE S2O program. The University of Melbourne subscribes to Project MUSE's Standard Journal Collection. Of the 375 titles in this collection, 59 are in the S2O program.
View the full list of all titles included in Project Muse's 2025 S2O program.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Sponsorship agreement.
Status
Supported since 1 January 2025 (ongoing).
Description
SciPost is a community-based open access publisher in the physical sciences that does not charge publishing fees to authors. They are committed to sharing science openly while maintaining the highest standards of peer review. SciPost is community funded and depends on sponsors to operate.
Further information
SciPost - Volumes published by the University of Melbourne since 2016
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Consortium membership.
Status
Ongoing support.
Description
Coordinated by CERN, SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) includes research centres and funders from 45 countries. Together they fund open access publishing in the field of high-energy physics, including journal and book publishing. SCOAP3 focuses on providing open access pathways that do not involve author-facing fees.
Articles funded by SCOAP3 are also shared via the SCOAP3 Repository.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Collective funding / annual membership.
Status
Supported directly since 1 January 2025. Supported in 2024 via Knowledge Unlatched.
Description
Verfassungsblog (On Matters Constitutional) is a leading resource for legal discourse. It publishes peer-reviewed scholarship on constitutional law in German and English. It is independent and nonprofit, publishing open access at no cost to authors.
Further information
Verfassungsblog - Funding & Membership
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
Open infrastructure
The University supports some of the essential open infrastructure that makes open scholarship possible. This includes repositories and preprint servers, persistent identifier (PID) platforms, and other collective funding programs.
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Type
Community membership.
Status
Ongoing support.
Description
arXiv is one of the world's largest preprint servers and open access research-sharing platforms. It is now host to over 2 million papers across its eight disciplines (aspects of STEM and economics). As a nonprofit, arXiv relies on donations and memberships from universities, libraries, and research institutes.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Library supporter.
Status
Supported directly since 2025. Earlier funded alongside OAPEN via SCOSS, 2020-2023.
Description
The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books. It is a free, community-driven book discovery service. It also helps readers find trusted open access book publishers. DOAB depends on support from libraries and other stakeholders to sustain its services.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Library supporter.
Status
Supported directly. Earlier funded via SCOSS, 2018-2020.
Description
The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) provides a quality-controlled index of open access journals around the world. They work to build an equitable scholarly environment by widening access to quality research. It is maintained by an independent and non-profit organisation that depends on community support.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Financial sponsorship.
Status
Supported since 1 January 2025 (ongoing).
Description
Peer Community In (PCI) is a non-profit scientific organisation that creates and manages thematic communities of researchers. These communities offer researchers new way to evaluate, validate, and promote their work. PCI's processes are rigorous, transparent, and non-exclusive. PCI offers a free alternative peer review and scholarly publishing model.
PCI communities openly peer review submissions that are made available on preprint servers. Once a preprint has been through the PCI review process, authors can:
- publish for free in Peer Community Journal;
- submit to a PCI-friendly journal that takes the PCI review process into consideration; or,
- submit the paper elsewhere to be reviewed again.
Further information
Peer Community In - Partners and supporters
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
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Type
Collective funding.
Status
Supported since 2018 (ongoing, depending on funding cycles).
Description
The Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) brings institutions and organisations together to support open research infrastructure.
The University of Melbourne has pledged to a range of SCOSS funding cycles:
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - Pilot funding cycle, 2018-2020). Now funded directly.
- Sherpa Romeo (now Open Policy Finder) - Pilot funding cycle, 2018-2020.
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) & Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN) - Second funding cycle, 2020-2023. Now funded directly.
- Public Knowledge Project (PKP) - Second funding cycle, 2020-2023.
- Research Organization Registry (ROR) - Fourth funding cycle, 2022-2025.
- Dryad - Fourth funding cycle, 2022-2025.
Further information
Link directly to this information | Return to the Open Access Publishing page
Enquiries
For enquiries relating to open access publishing or sharing your research in a repository, please email your discipline's liaison librarians. Alternatively, you can contact the library with any questions, feedback or suggestions.
If you would like to discuss the initiatives supported by the Library, or recommend other initiatives for support, please reach out to the Scholarly Communications team.
Page last updated 12 September 2025.
Unless otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.
Repository
An online digital archive, usually open to the public, that stores and provides access to research outputs. Common types of repositories include: institutional repositories, general repositories, and subject repositories.
Preprint
A version of an article or paper that is shared openly prior to formal peer review or publication.
Preprints are typically shared on preprint servers, such as arXiv.org, bioRxiv, OSF Preprints, SSRN, or Zenodo.
Find out more on our Preprints page.
Subscribe to Open (S2O)
A publishing model wherein a journal makes the coming year’s content open access if their annual subscription target is reached. Content is published open access without author-facing open access Article Processing Charges (APCs).
Similar models have also been adopted by some book publishers, as in the case of MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O) program. Participating institutions receive access to the publisher’s backlist/archives and, if participation targets are met, the coming year’s books are published open access.
Some of the S2O initiatives currently supported by the University of Melbourne are listed on our Open Scholarship Initiatives page.
Institutional open access publishing agreements
A contract entered into by an institution, such as a university, and a publisher to facilitate open access publishing. Such agreements may let affiliated corresponding authors to publish open access without facing fees. Such fees are referred to as open access Article Processing Charges (APCs), Book Processing Charges (BPCs), or Chapter Processing Charges (CPCs).
The most common kind of institutional open access publishing agreement today is the Read and Publish agreement. Such agreements, with hybrid/subscription journal publishers, include both read access and an amount of open access publishing. Transformative Agreements that facilitate publishers becoming fully open access have also been emerging. Agreements with fully open access publishers can also be negotiated.
The University of Melbourne's current open access publishing agreements are detailed on the Open Access Publishing page.
Article Processing Charge (APC)
Fees levied by a journal for publishing an article open access. They are sometimes charged by open access journals and may be their only source of income. Hybrid journals always charge APCs for an article to published open access. For hybrid journals, this is an additional income source to subscriptions.
APCs may be paid by an author, their institution, or a funding body. These charges may be waived if an institutional open access publishing agreement is in place.
Book Processing Charge (BPC) / Chapter Processing Charge (CPC)
Fees levied by a book publisher for publishing a book or book chapter open access. Most major academic book publishers will charge a BPC or CPC to publish open access. Some open access book publishers do not levy BPCs or CPCs, being supported by institutions and other funders. BPCs and CPCs may be paid by an author, their institution, or a funding body.
Diamond open access
The term diamond open access is used to describe fully open access journals or publishers that do not levy publishing fees to authors. The output is made freely available immediately upon publication, usually under a Creative Commons licence, without cost to readers or authors.
Unlike journals covered under our open access publishing agreements, diamond journals do not levy fees to any authors, regardless of affiliation. Diamond journals are not listed in our all-covered-titles spreadsheet, but can be explored in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
Diamond publishing is usually funded by institutions, libraries, organisations, societies, or associations. Some definitions of diamond open access also require that the publisher is non-profit.
The University publishes a range of diamond open access journals, some of which are showcased on our Scholar-Led Journals at the University of Melbourne page. The Library also contributes to several diamond open access publishing initiatives, as covered on our Open Scholarship Initiatives page.