Affordabee. Low-cost open access publishing

Overcoming financial barriers to open access publishing.

Open access publishing allows immediate and free access to scientific articles so anyone can benefit from reading and using the research. This contrasts the traditional publishing model whereby research is held behind the publisher’s paywall and can only be accessed by readers who can afford the subscription.

A common way of financing open access publishing is through article processing charges (APC). The APC may be paid by the researcher, the researcher’s institution, or their research funder. While overcoming the paywall subscriptions, the APC approach is (once again) only beneficial to those who can afford it, i.e. if researchers cannot pay the publication charges, their work is not published.

For researchers under financial pressure — whether a result of the local economy, career stage, or a lack of funding — open publishing can often seem an unrealistic option. The result is publishing inequality, which limits the reach of research, as well as the speed at which research is published and quality of published scientific work, impacting not only individual researchers but scientific discovery as a whole.

The biggest impact of APC cost barriers is felt by researchers in low- and middle-income countries. Over recent years, several initiatives have been developed to make open access publishing more widely accessible. Research4Life is one such programme, providing institutions in low- and middle-income countries online access to academic and professional peer-reviewed content. Funder financed open access platforms such as Wellcome Open Research offer an alternative approach, allowing researchers funded by the organisation to publish without direct cost to the author.

Many open access publishers now offer waivers or subsidies to authors from developing countries. The waiver policy is usually linked to the corresponding author or the source of research funds. In most cases, authors from low-income countries receive full waivers, while those from middle-income countries receive a 50% subsidy. Eligibility is often based on whether authors are located in a country with access to the Research4Life programme, which itself takes into account figures from the World Bank.

Despite this progress, it can be unclear, and at times challenging, to find out which journals offer such subsidies, where funding opportunities exist, and how to access them.

This is where Affordabee steps in, providing a user-friendly platform that guides students and researchers from resource-poor settings to the most up-to-date funding opportunities. Through this initiative, Affordabee hopes to reduce the APC cost barrier and ultimately safeguard scientific publishing equality.