Current MIT affiliates: This includes faculty, research scientists, postdocs, graduate students, staff, and other authors currently affiliated with MIT.

To use the fund, MIT authors must publish in open-access journals that:

• are peer reviewed,
• are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals,
• have policies and practices consistent with the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association Code of Conduct,
• make their standard fee schedules publicly accessible, and
• waive their fees in cases of financial hardship.

Not eligible: Articles in journals that charge an annual subscription fee, including journals that use a delayed open-access model, or offer an “open choice” option to make a particular article open access are not eligible. Currently we are not supporting mirror journals.

Articles reporting on research that was supported by funders that allow research funds to be used for publication fees (e.g. NIH) are not eligible for this funding, whether or not publication costs were specifically included in the grant. This fund is intended to be a last resort for use when no alternative source of funding is available.

• The subsidy is limited to $1,000 per article, regardless of the number of authors.
• If permitted: grant money should be used for article processing charges before requesting this fund.
• Authors are limited to two funded articles per year.
• Once funds have been approved, authors must pay first and then seek reimbursement within six months after publication.

To request funds, MIT authors should fill out the open access fund request form. The request will be reviewed for eligibility and the author informed whether it has been approved.

If the request is approved, the author will need to pay upfront and then supply proof of payment of the publication charges. Payment will normally be made directly to the MIT department. Use of an MIT credit card is encouraged for efficiency in handling reimbursement. Once funds have been approved, authors must seek reimbursement within six months after publication.

Where feasible, the Libraries would appreciate an acknowledgement be included with the article that funding was supplied by the MIT Libraries.

May 2025 update: Due to budget cuts in the Libraries, the funds for OA monographs have been reduced.  

We support MIT authors publishing OA scholarly monographs without an embargo and with an open license (e.g., Creative Commons). Requests for support will be considered on a case by case basis, as funding allows.

This is the information we need:  

• Book title, authors, and summary of topic
• Publisher
• Expected date of publication
• Price quote for OA edition from publisher (your expected contribution)
• A copy of the OA publication agreement (draft ok) with info about the license
• Deadline from the publishers for a decision on OA

Contact us at Ask Scholarly Communications if you have questions.

MIT joined four other universities in launching a new “Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity” (COPE) on September 15, 2009. The goal of the compact is to allow subscription-based journals and open access journals to compete on a more level playing field by providing equitable support for the processing-fee business model for open-access journals.

To support this goal, universities pledge to support fees for open access publication. Specifically, the universities commit to “the timely establishment of durable mechanisms for underwriting reasonable publication charges for articles written by [their] faculty and published in fee-based open-access journals and for which other institutions would not be expected to provide funds.”

In addition to MIT, the other initial signatories were Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, and the University of California at Berkeley.

How the OA fund relates to the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy

The faculty created the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy as a first step to redress imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. This fund represents another such step.