Open Access costs
Publishing with us
Article Processing Charges (APCs)
APC discounts
Open Access inclusivity policies
Additional information
Publishing with us
If you are a corresponding author based at an institution who has signed a Publish and Read deal with the Society, you can publish Open Access in any of our journals or open research platform, as much as you want, without any charges to you as an author. Publish and Read is designed to be simple for all involved. Corresponding authors simply submit using their institutional email address. Eligible authors are matched against the list of Publish and Read institutions and the article is routed for the fee-free option.
Authors who wish to publish Gold OA (where the final, published version of your article is permanently and freely available online for anyone to read), but are not at a Publish and Read institution, may do so by paying an article processing charge (APC), as described below.
Publication in Journal of General Virology, Journal of Medical Microbiology, and International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology is free of charges if authors choose not to publish OA.
Article processing charges (APCs)
Authors who wish to publish Gold OA, but are not covered by a Publish and Read licence may do so by paying an APC at the following rates.
| Journals/platform | APC price (2023) |
Journal of Medical Microbiology International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology | £2100 |
| £700† |
† The APC on Access Microbiology is only applied to the Version of Record, if the article is accepted. Pedagogy articles are published for free.
APC discounts
Corresponding authors who are Microbiology Society members are entitled to a 30% discount on the APC. In order to redeem the discount, members should provide their membership number during the APC checkout process.
Corresponding authors submitting to Journal of General Virology who are members of American Society for Virology, Australasian Virology Society, Canadian Society for Virology and Gesellschaft für Virologie can benefit from a 20% discount on the APC. Members should contact their respective Society for the associated discount code to use during checkout.
Please note that only one discount may be applied per submission.
Open Access inclusivity policies
We are pleased to participate in the HINARI programme (part of Research4Life), meaning that corresponding authors in Group A or B countries (as defined by the HINARI programme) are automatically entitled to a full waiver to publish in Microbiology, Microbial Genomics and Access Microbiology. Authors should complete the transaction within Copyright Clearance Center where the discount will be automatically applied.
The Society acknowledges that not all authors receive financial support to publish their work Open Access. In order to maintain the sustainability of our publishing programme and hold true to our values of equity and inclusivity, we will consider requests for assistance with paying an APC in Microbiology, Microbial Genomics or Access Microbiology so long as it is done so at manuscript submission so that there is time to act before (and in the hope that) your paper is accepted for publication. Please note that securing funding for your Open Access paper is no guarantee that it will be published, that decision is made by an independent Editor who is unaware of the funding status, and their decision is based purely on the scientific merits of your work.
When requesting assistance to cover APCs, we ask authors to do the following before/during submission:
- Check whether the corresponding author is from a country in Group A or B of the HINARI programme and if so, their paper is automatically entitled to 100% APC discount. The discount is applied by authors during the check-out process if the paper is accepted.
- Explore alternative payment options, including Publish and Read eligibility:
- Please ask your librarian and/or research manager to either upgrade an existing subscription, or to sign-up to Publish and Read (you can use this Library Recommendation Form); please copy copy [email protected] into your email.
- Provide your librarian’s contact details to our staff to follow up with a Publish and Read price and license terms.
- Check amongst an author group whether one of the contributory authors is affiliated to a Publish and Read participating institution and could assume (co-) corresponding author responsibilities.
- Check OA discounts and funding opportunities, through the Society’s membership offers, as described above.
Additional information
The UK requires that VAT rates be applied based on the location of the customer for electronic services. Charges are applied during the APC checkout process, and are as follows:
- 20% on all transactions with UK individuals or institutions;
- 20% on transactions with EU individuals without a VAT registration number;
- 0% on transactions with EU institutions with a VAT registration number;
- 0% on transactions with individuals or institutions outside of the UK or EU.
APCs will be reimbursed if an article does not comply with the research funder's requirements because of our oversight, or if a corresponding author from a Publish and Read institution has not been identified due to our oversight. APCs will not be refunded where article publication is not compliant with funder mandates for reasons outside our control. The Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies maintains a list of policymakers and their mandates.