Select the publishing model that is right for you

Open access options

Whatever your discipline or funding requirements, our goal is to make it easy for you to find the right open access home for your research — and we provide a range of publishing options to help you choose the model that works best for you and your research.

• Nearly all of Elsevier's over 3,000 journals now enable open access publishing, including over 800 journals which are fully open access journals

• Choose from more than 890 gold or fully open access journals — we’re adding more every month

• Our Online Author Communication System guarantees a seamless publishing experience with the assurance that you’ll be shown the lowest possible article publishing charge (APC) for your article

• There is a range of subsidized full OA titles, where the article publishing charge is paid by an organization or society

Choosing an open access journal is simple: with more than 890 gold or fully open access journals, Elsevier has a broad choice of titles, including journals publishing dedicated data, software, hardware and methods articles, alternative article formats (such as videos), and specialty and broad scope journals. If there’s a particular journal that isn’t fully open access, you still have options! Nearly all of Elsevier's over 3,000 journals now enable open access publishing, including 890 journals which are fully open access journals.

When you’re ready to publish your open access article, you will need to choose a Creative Commons license from a selection. The license you choose determines how other people can use and build on your work. For more information, see our licenses page.

Funding body and institutional agreements

Funding bodies and institutions around the world increasingly require researchers to publish open access in some form, so that everyone can see the work they’re supporting. If your funder or institution requires you to publish gold open access, you’ll find the options and support you need with Elsevier.

Our agreements around the world mean that your institution or research funder may pay the article publishing charge (APC) on your behalf or you may receive a discount to publish your article. With many open access agreements and funding arrangements worldwide, we help to ensure that authors publishing in our journals are in full compliance with open access policies and specific funding requirements.

Waivers

We are committed to helping researchers publish and access high-quality research. We provide flexible payment models and a wide range of options to assist researchers and institutions globally. By considering local economic conditions, we ensure more researchers can publish open access and share their work globally.

We grant waivers in cases of genuine need, therefore, we automatically apply article publishing charge (APC) waivers or discounts to those articles in gold open access journals for which all author groups are based in a country eligible for the Research4Life program.

Our waiving policy does not apply to hybrid journals. Authors publishing in hybrid journals can publish under the subscription model at no cost and make use of the Elsevier sharing policy.

Since 2024, we have also been piloting Geographical Pricing for Open Access (GPOA) across a list of fully open access journals to make APCs more affordable for authors in low- and middle-income countries. Details about our GPOA approach and country banding based on GNI are outlined here. You can find the journals participating in this pilot on this page.

Research4Life

All fully open access journals published by Elsevier are included in the Research4Life open access eligibility program.

How to check if you are eligible for a Research4Life APC waiver or discount?

The waiver or discount will depend on the location of the authors institution:

1. 100% APC waiver: The corresponding author and co-authors must be all from a Group A country institution Example: Corresponding author from Afghanistan institution and all co-authors from Congo, Nepal and Zambia institutions (all Group A countries)

2. 50% APC discount: The corresponding author and co-authors must be all from a Group B country institution Example: Corresponding author from Albania institution and all co-authors from Algeria, Botswana and Vietnam institutions (all Group B countries)

3. 50% APC discount: A mix of authors from Group A and B countries Example: Corresponding author from Afghanistan institution and all co-authors from Albania, Congo, Nepal and Botswana institutions (mix of Group A and B countries)

4. No Research4Life waiver or discount: A mix of authors from non-Research4Life countries and Group A or/and B countries Example: Corresponding author from Afghanistan institution (Group A) and co-authors from Albania, (Group B) and United States institutions (non-Research4Life country)

How do you request a Research4Life APC waiver or discount?

Authors who are eligible for a Research4Life APC waiver or discount as per above, do not have to request the waiver or discount prior to their article submission. The Research4Life waiver and discount has been automated in the author journey.

The online author communication system (OACS) recognizes the country of the corresponding and co-author’s organizations and is, therefore, able to present the Research4Life waiver or discount to the corresponding author. This happens after acceptance of the article when the author completes the rights and access forms when publishing in a fully open access journal.