The APC Fund That Ran Out in May
A university library's open access publishing fund of US$180,000 for the year was 78% spent by the end of May. Sixty-one percent went on 14 articles in three journals from one publisher, at APCs of US$3,900–4,600 each. Eligibility rules require the corresponding author to be a staff member; there is no cap per person. Waivers are automatic only for authors at Research4Life Group A institutions. Authors at the university's two regional campuses, who hold teaching-only contracts, are not eligible for the fund. A lecturer at one regional campus has an article accepted in a diamond open access journal that charges no APC but invites a voluntary US$600 subsidy. A PhD student has an acceptance in a hybrid journal with a €3,000 APC and no funder. The library director wants the fund redesigned to "support those who can't pay".
1. Diagnose why the fund ran out and who was disadvantaged by the existing rules.
Read the worked answer
The fund was regressive by design. It reimbursed whatever APC was invoiced, with no cap, to whoever held a qualifying contract. That means it subsidised the authors and fields best able to pay anyway - the 14 articles at US$3,900–4,600 in three journals of one publisher absorbed 61% of the budget. Expensive hybrid journals were effectively the best-value choice for an individual author, because the fund paid in full, while cheaper or diamond venues saved the author nothing.
Concentration. No per-person or per-department cap allowed a small number of well-resourced authors to consume the fund early in the year. Spend then stopped in May, so the fund's availability depended on the calendar rather than need - an author with the same paper in September got nothing.
Structural exclusion. Teaching-only staff at regional campuses were ineligible by contract type, regardless of need. That is not a neutral rule: it encodes an assumption that only research-contract staff produce research worth publishing, and it disadvantages exactly the group the director says the fund should help. PhD students with no funder were also outside the scheme.
No route to cheaper publishing. The fund had no preference for diamond, low-cost or consortium-negotiated venues, so it created no incentive to use them and no collective leverage.
The result: public money subsidised the least price-sensitive publishing, while the authors with the least institutional support received nothing.
2. Redesign the fund. Specify eligibility, caps, priority rules and the mechanism for supporting diamond journals.
Read the worked answer
Purpose statement. The fund exists to remove payment as a barrier to open publishing for authors without alternative funding, not to reimburse invoices.
Eligibility. All authors with a university affiliation, including teaching-only and regional campus staff, PhD students and early-career researchers. Require a declaration of other funding and that no grant or institutional project budget will cover the APC. Do not means-test individuals; test the funding source.
Caps. A maximum contribution per article (for example US$1,500, reviewed annually) and a maximum per author per year (for example two articles). Both caps force a conversation about venue choice without excluding anyone outright.
Priority order. (1) Diamond and no-fee open access journals - small or no payment, and institutional membership rather than per-article subsidy wherever possible. (2) Fully open access journals with APCs below the cap. (3) Hybrid journals only where a funder or assessment requirement demands that venue and no green route exists. Applications assessed monthly with a reserve held back for the second half of the year.
Diamond support. Replace per-article voluntary subsidies with institutional membership or collective funding through a consortium or national platform. That spreads money across many authors, is predictable for the journal, and avoids converting a voluntary contribution into an expectation.
Governance. Publish spend by publisher and journal quarterly; review the caps at mid-year; state clearly that paying an APC is not a criterion of research quality.
3. Decide on the two pending requests: the regional-campus lecturer and the PhD student.
Read the worked answer
The lecturer (diamond journal, voluntary US$600). Pay it, but not as an APC. The correct instrument is an institutional membership or a block subsidy to the journal, negotiated once, covering this and future authors. The lecturer should not have to apply for a discretionary waiver to be allowed to support a journal that asks nothing of her; that framing makes a voluntary contribution feel compulsory and puts her in the position of asking permission to publish. If a membership is not possible, pay the US$600 from the fund under a clearly labelled "diamond journal support" line, record it, and note that eligibility was previously restricted by contract type - correct that rule in writing so the exception does not look like favouritism.
The PhD student (€3,000 hybrid, no funder). Apply the new rules rather than the old ones. Check first whether a funder mandate requires that venue, and whether green deposit or an institutional rights-retention route would satisfy the requirement; if so, the cheapest compliant route is deposit, not payment. If hybrid is genuinely necessary, the fund can contribute up to the per-article cap (US$1,500), and the student and supervisor must find the balance or choose another venue. Do not pay the full €3,000: with 22% of the budget left, two such awards exhaust the year, and the student is not more deserving than the September applicants.
Both decisions should be documented with reasons, so the new rules have a precedent trail and the director can defend them to the two institutions that consumed most of the old fund.