Open Access publishing provides free and unlimited online access to scientific literature and scholarly information.

Open Access publishing requires an Article Processing Charge (APC) to cover the costs of publishing an article in an OA journal (i.e. editorial costs for peer review, editorial processing, access, archiving, and infrastructure).

The APC fee is paid by the author or the author's department (university or research organization), most often from project funds.

The amount of this fee varies from journal/publisher to journal, taking into account the different costs and prestige of the journal. The average cost is 2500 €. The specific amount of the APC fee should be transparent and searchable on the publisher's website.

Under the terms of the transformation agreements concluded, the following OA publishing options will be available in 2026:

Unlimited OA publishing:

• Cambridge University Press: in all titles
• ACM DL: in all titles
• IoP Science: in all titles
• American Physical Society e-journals: in hybrid titles
• Sage HSS: in hybrid titles, 20% discount on GOLD OA publishing, in titles in the HSS collection

Limited number of tokens for OA publishing in hybrid titles (number of free/total tokens): 

• Springer Compact
• Elsevier Science Direct 
• Taylor&Francis
• Wiley

The number of tokens allocated (by CzechELib) to cover APC fees will be published on this page (expected January–February 2026). 

Tokens can be approved now. 

Instructions for authors can be found on the website of the CzechELib National Centre. CzechELib has also prepared an informative list of journals with free/discounted OA publishing.

Information from Elsevier on the OA publication process is available in the presentation and in the webinar recording (for the password, contact openaccess@uk.zcu.cz).

Tokens are allocated according to the "First come first served" rule. The main (corresponding) author is from UWB.

For communication with publishers it is necessary to indicate the affiliation to UWB, i.e. use e-mail with the domain @zcu.cz.

We recommend using tokens only if APC funding from other sources is not available.

1 token = 1 paid APC fee per article (no additional costs for UWB).

It is recommended to use the CC-BY license (meets the conditions of grant providers).

Contact e-mail: openaccess@uk.zcu.cz