Open Access Publishing Agreements: News and Quota Updates

Discover the current open access publishing agreements in place, allowing options for publishing research open access at no cost to the author.

Limited annual APC quota updates

OA Agreement	APC quotas expected to run out in 2025*
Oxford University Press (OUP)	December, 2025
IEEE	Likely to last until the end of 2025.
American Chemical Society (ACS)	APC QUOTA IS FULLY USED UP as of 5th September, 2025. This agreement is now closed for the remainder of the year.
Springer	APC QUOTA IS FULLY USED UP as of 12th September, 2025. This agreement is now closed for the remainder of the year.
Taylor and Francis	APC QUOTA IS FULLY USED UP as of 30th July, 2025. This agreement is now closed for the remainder of the year.
Wiley - Hybrid (subscription) journals	Expected to run out by 8th December, 2025.
Wiley - Gold (fully Open Access) journals	Expected to last until the end of 2025.
Elsevier	APC QUOTA IS FULLY USED UP as of 13th September, 2025. This agreement is now closed for the remainder of the year.

*these are very broad projections which will change as the year progresses.

Upcoming OA information sessions

There are currently no upcoming information sessions.
For any queries or information related to UCD–IReL negotiated agreements, please contact us at oapublishing@ucd.ie.

Key updates for 2025

New Open Access Publishing Agreement:
American Society Of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

The new UCD-IReL agreement with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is effective from April 1, 2025, to December 31, 2027.

This agreement provides current staff and students at participating institutions with access to all ASME journals (from 2000 to current) and all ASME Conference Proceedings (from 2008 to current).

Additionally, it allows authors to publish their articles in eligible ASME journals and Conference Proceedings as open access without paying an article processing charge (APC). More information here.

BMJ - this agreement has now unlimited open access quota.

Institute of Physics (IOP) - the new agreement for 2025-2027 now includes publishing in Gold journals for the first time; OA quota - unlimited.

Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) - this agreement now includes Gold (fully Open Access) RSC journals, and an unlimited APC allocation.

Optica Publishing - the renewed agreement now has unlimited APC quota.

Note for authors submitting to Elsevier and Wiley Gold (Fully Open Access) journals:

Please be aware that UCD-IReL agreements with Elsevier and Wiley have limited annual APC (Article Processing Charge) quotas. This means there is a risk that OA funding may no longer be available by the time the article is accepted for publication.

If funding is no longer available at the point of acceptance, the APC will have to be covered through alternative sources.