• These are contracts that transform traditional journal subscription agreements between publishers and universities or consortia. These agreements allow for immediate open access publication of articles published by authors who are members of the institution that signs the agreement without paying an APC (Article Processing Charges).

• Thus, budgets previously allocated to "pay for access" allow a gradual transition to "pay for publishing in open access". Therefore, these agreements allow a portion of what the institution's research staff publishes in a publisher's journals to be published in open access, and eventually, all of it. 

• In case of publishing articles in co-authorship with members of other institutions and/or countries, it is recommended to consult the ESAC (Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges), global register of transformative agreements to find out which authors can benefit from transformative agreements and decide the corresponding author. 

• In 2019, the CRUE undertook to promote the Open ScienceSubsequently, a CRUE-CSIC commission negotiated the first multi-annual transformative agreements to which agreements have been added at the Catalan level (CSUC) and of the UPC.
• La UPC has agreements with the following publishers:
  • Elsevier
  • Springer
  • Wiley
  • American Chemical Society (ACS)
  • American Institute of Physics (AIP)
  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • Royal Society of Chemistry (CSR)
  • International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE)
  • Public Library of Science (PLOS)
  • Cambridge University Press
  • SCOAP3
  • Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)
  • Bentham Science
  • Frontiers
  • The Royal Society

• Some publishers offer unlimited APCs and others a certain number of APCs in the form of bonuses. 
• Each publisher determines in which journals APCs can be used. 
• From each publisher's platform and during the publication process of an article, the publisher offers the corresponding author the possibility of publishing the article in immediate open access within the terms of the agreement.

• During the acceptance process of an article, when the corresponding author indicates that they want to publish in open access, the publisher contacts the Library Publications and Archives Service, which checks that all requirements are met: 

1. The author of the correspondence is linked to UPC at the time of submitting the article to the publisher for acceptance and publication. The link to the UPC it can be as a PDI, PTGAS, research grant or PhD student and is verified from the Identitat Digital corporate information system UPCFor these purposes, associate, substitute or emeritus professors and personnel linked to or invited to the UPC are not considered.   
2. In the article, the affiliation of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya has been incorporated into the signature of the UPC authors according to the established guidelinesThe official name of the University is, for all purposes and in all languages: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC)
3. The corresponding author has the ORCIDcode, this is reported in DRAC and is shown in FUTUR.
4. The corresponding author is linked to a UPC research group as research staff UPCThis criterion also applies to doctoral students with a contractual relationship with the UPC when they are corresponding authors of the articles. Linking to the research group UPC is verified from DRAC o FUTUR. 

• The SBPA requests a copy of the article from the corresponding author in case it cannot be accessed from the publication platform.

• In case of publishing the article as part of a project, remember that many funding bodies require a license Creative Commons CC BY. Publishers already assign the CC by or let the author choose one.

• APCs are assigned in order of request on each publisher's platform until the available vouchers are exhausted. The number of APCs is reported in the corresponding publisher's section.  

• When no more APCs are available from a publisher, this is reported in the corresponding publisher's section.

• List of articles published by research staff UPC: 2021, 2022, 2023 i 2024 with assigned APCs.

• APCs assigned in 2025 by research groups from Wiley publishers, Springer, IEEE and RSC. Information from unlimited APCs (ACS, CUP, Elsevier and PLoS) is not included. It is marked in red when the research group has exhausted the available APCs. Latest update: 2025-10-21.

• En hybrid journals (these are traditional journals that offer authors the ability to make their individual articles open to everyone in exchange for paying an APC. Other articles in the same journal are accessible only by subscription (Source: MIT)).
• Agreement for the period 2025-2028. No magazines are included gold open access, in which all articles are published in open access by paying an APC. 
• Relation of hybrid magazine titles of Elsevier where to publish in open access. 
• More information of the'transformative agreement with this publisher. 
• Publisher contact address for authors: support@elsevier.com

• In the transformative agreement with Elsevier, the UPC has an unlimited number of APCs per hybrid magazines.
• The agreement does not include hybrid gold.

You can consult the following resource: 

• More information (section Links of interest)

• Agreement for the period 2025-2027.
• The agreement is to publish in hybrid journals in a hybrid gold.
• List of journal titles included in the agreement.
• Summary sheet of the'transformative agreement with this publisher.
• More information.
• For any questions, contact info.biblioteques@upc.edu

• In the transformational agreement with the American Chemical Society, the UPC has an unlimited number of APCs.

You can consult the following resources: 

• More information (section Links of interest)
• Contact: help@services.acs.org

• Agreement 2026-2028 for the hybrid journals from IEEE Electronic Library (IEL) and IEEE All-Society Periodicals Package (ASPP). Journals, transactions and magazines are included.
• List of journals included in the agreement. Attention:
  • The APCs of the agreement are for publishing in hybrid journals: “Hybrid Open Access”
  • APCs do not include excess pages or color.
  • Gold magazines o "Full Open Access": the agreement includes a 20% discount on the price of the APC. 
  • Magazines: "Subscriber based access" agreement includes only access to titles (reading, not publication). 
• To benefit from an APC from this publisher, the corresponding author must contact the using journal always email @upc.edu. 
• For gold journals, the corresponding author must accept the open publishing agreement or OA agreement at the time of submitting the article to the journal for review/acceptance. In the case of hybrid journals, this process takes place when the article has been accepted. 
• Publisher contact address: onlinesupport@ieee.org
• More info about the agreement
• Month informació
• For any questions, contact info.biblioteques@upc.edu

• In the transformative agreement with IEEE, the UPC initially has 34 APCs for 2026.
• APCs are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis until all available APCs are used up. 

You can consult the following resources: 

• IEEE Authorship workshop 
• Understanding the Publishing Process: Behind the Scenes with IEEE
• IEEE Audit and Open Access Symposium: How to publish under the CRUE Spain Open Access agreement with IEEE. 
  • Recording
  • Presentation

• More information (section Links of interest)

• Agreement for the period 2025-2027.
• En hybrid magazines in a gold magazines.
• See the list of magazines here. 

• Unlimited number of APCs.

• It is necessary that the author be the corresponding author and sign with affiliation UPC.

• Sessions of academics i publication portal by authors.

• More information about the agreement

In the transformative agreement with Cambridge University Press, the UPC has an unlimited number of APCs.

• In gold magazines:
  • Plos One
  • PLoS Computational Biology
  • PLoS Pathogens
  • PLoS Genetics
  • PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
  • PLOS Digital Health 
  • PLOS Complex Systems
• It is necessary that the author UPC be the corresponding author and sign with affiliation UPC.
• Important: in the sending process, in the "Institution" field you must select the UPC from the dropdown
  (and not write it manually). Check the guidelines.

In the transformative agreement with PLOS, the UPC has an unlimited number of APCs.

From April 2024, all researchers involved in projects or grants funded by the European Commission can publish their research results in ORE.

Articles are accepted from the following subject areas: natural sciences, engineering and technology, medical sciences, agricultural and veterinary sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts.

At the end of 2020 the European Commission (EC) launched the Open Research Europe publication platform, after signing an agreement with F1000 Research. 

Articles can be published in immediate open access without paying Article Processing Charges. The publication costs, valued at €780 per article, are assumed by the EC.  

Keep in mind: 

• the use of the platform is not mandatory
• the article review model is "open peer-review" 
• the platform does not include qualitative indicators
• articles must present results of EC-funded research projects
• at least one of the co-authors must be linked to an ongoing or completed European project
• the dataset(s) that support the results presented in the article must be published openly
• from July 2022, Scopus indexes Open Research Europe.

More information: 

• FAQs about the Open Research Platform
• Post an article on the Open Research Platform
• How to publish datasets in open access

For any questions, contact info.bibliotequesupc.edu

The research staff of the UPC has a 10% discount for publishing articles in open access in journals of the publishing house Frontiers when they are corresponding authors. 

• The discount is requested when sending the article to the publisher, before starting the peer-review.
• Proof of affiliation UPC. This can be done using the email @upc.edu
• When the article has been accepted for publication, the publisher issues the invoice with the discount applied, an invoice that is paid with a budget (project, unit or group) managed by the UPC.
• Agreement valid for the period June 2025-May 2027. More informació
• Publisher contact address for authors: institutions@frontiersin.org

SCOAP3 (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics) is an international project led by CERN whose objective is to open prestigious journals of high-energy physics open access at no cost to the authors. 

The cost of publishing is assumed by each participating country in proportion to its scientific output. The articles are published in SCOAP3 and in the publishers' websites.

More info on what to do to publish in SCOAP journals.

The magazines included are:

• Acta Physica Polonica B (Jagiellonian University) 
• Advances in High Energy Physics (Hindawi Publishing Corporation) 
• Chinese physics C (Institute of Physics Publishing / Chinese Academy of Sciences) 
• The European Physical Journal C (Springer / Società Italiana di Fisica)   
• Journal of high energy physics (Springer / SISSA) 
• Nuclear physics B (Elsevier) 
• Physics letters B (Elsevier) 
• Physical Review Letters (American Physical Society) 
• Physical Review D (American Physical Society) 
• Physical Review C (American Physical Society) 
• Progress of theoretical and experimental physics (Oxford University Press / Phyiscal Society of Japan) 

• Agreement until June 2026.
• 25% discount for publishing open access articles in the publisher's journals The Royal Society. 
• Proof of affiliation UPC using the institutional email andID Ringgold of the UPC which is the following: 16767 
• When the article has been accepted for publication, the publisher issues the invoice with the applied discount which is paid with a budget (project, unit or group) managed by the UPC.
• list of titles where to post
• Publisher contact address for authors: oam@royalsociety.org

The members of the UPC they have a 30% discount for publishing articles in open access in Bentham Science publishing journals when they are corresponding authors and at the time of acceptance of the publication.

• The discount is applicable to all subscription journals, open access journals and books published with the publisher.
• See the list of magazines here.
• Guide by the authors
• More information about the aid 

At UPCommons you can check all the articles in the open access journals published by different units of the UPC. For the editing and publication process some of them use the journal service of the UPC and the Open Journal System (OJS) software.

All of them are polytechnical and some are indexed in the most prestigious international indexes, such as:

• ACE: architecture, city and environment 
• DC Papers