Fondren Library's Open Access (OA) Author Fund is designed to heighten the visibility and accessibility of the University's scholarship and to support current Rice employees and students who choose to publish in OA journals that require author fees for accepted manuscripts.
All current Rice faculty, staff, students, and post-docs are eligible to apply for funding. Alumni, visiting scholars, and complementary employees are not eligible.
Authors applying for funds must be corresponding authors. Preference is given to research or scholarship primarily conducted by Rice employees or students.
Authors are expected to exhaust other funding sources and use appropriate research grant funds to pay for publication charges, when possible. In some cases, the author may receive funding after supplying explanations for why discretionary grant funding was used for other purposes. Authors should consider the library funds as a last resort when no other sources of funding are available.
Inquiring authors are encouraged to consult with the OA Author Fund reviewers regarding the eligibility of open access journals prior to submitting manuscripts. Email questions to openaccess@rice.edu.
Authors applying for open access author funds must be publishing in journals that meet the criteria below:
Articles must:
Funds may be used to pay article processing charges up to $1,500 per article, but not color, page, or image charges.
Publication charges will be paid to the publisher on behalf of an author on a first-come-first-serve basis. Once the fund is expended, there will be no more funds until the next fiscal year.
A requesting author may be awarded funding once per fiscal year.
Funding will be distributed through a rolling review process.
Fondren Library will make available a copy of every funded article in the Rice Research Repository (R-3), a publishing platform that highlights Rice scholarship.
To apply for funding, email openaccess@rice.edu. Please include your Rice affiliation, contact information, and description of your publication.