Read and Publish Agreements
Read & Publish (R&P) agreements allow CQU authors (including Research Higher Degree candidates) to publish Open Access in selected journals, avoiding an Article Processing Charge (APC). As part of the Library’s payment for journal subscriptions, we negotiate deals with publishers that mean CQU academics can avoid APCs. However, publishers do place limitations on which journals are included and the number of articles that can be published.
R&P agreements are only a small part of a broader open-access movement. For more information, refer to CQU Library’s Open Access Publishing page.
To use an R&P agreement:
- Check you are publishing in an eligible journal. Open the CAUL Open Access Agreements > 2025 Title List and use the magnifying glass on the right to search for the journal name. If your desired journal is not on the list, you may still be eligible for funding through the University’s separate Open Access Journal Scheme.
- If your journal is eligible, confirm if the article type you are submitting is covered. Only specific article types will have the APC waived. Consult the Read & Publish Agreements Negotiated by CAUL guide, select the publisher, and review the Agreement Details to determine which article types are included.
- If the journal is published by Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, or Wiley/Hindawi, check the Caps report to see if the available APC waivers have been exhausted. These publishers place a national cap on the number of articles that can claim a waived APC.
- Prior to submitting your manuscript, read the journal’s submission guidelines webpage and confirm whether there are any other costs, such as page charges or a submission fee. Please note that R&P agreements do not cover these additional charges and cannot be waived or paid for by the Library.
- Submit your article to the journal, ensuring you are affiliated to Central Queensland University, using your CQU email address (affiliate email is recommended for RHDs), and you are the corresponding author (you do not have to be the lead author).
- Once the article is accepted, the publisher will give you the opportunity to nominate the Open Access publishing option.
Frequently Asked Questions
Only some publishers offer R&P deals, and they decide which of their journals are included. The Library does not make this choice. Because Article Processing Charge (APC) waivers are bundled into journal subscription prices, fully Open Access journals (also known as Gold journals) are typically excluded from agreements because they have no paid subscriptions. In such cases, funding from CQU’s Open Access Journal Scheme (staff/affiliate login required), administered by the Research Division, may be an option.
If you have no funding options to publish Open Access through your chosen journal, you can still publish the traditional way and deposit your Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in Elements. The AAM version will then be legally made Open Access for the public to read via aCQUire.
It is not uncommon for journals to have additional costs that are separate from the Open Access APC. This may include a submission fee, page and colour charges (for costs associated with the corresponding printed journal), and other administrative costs. These fees differ for each journal, even within the same publisher. They will be mentioned in the journal’s ‘Submission Guidelines’, and it is essential that authors read this prior to submission. Avoid submitting to a journal if you do not have the funds available to meet these other publication charges. The Library is unable to have these fees waived because they fall outside of the scope of R&P agreements.
R&P agreements are deals that the Library has established with publishers, providing APC journal waivers as part of a package with journal subscriptions. There is no dedicated fund for APCs, and no financial transaction occurs with each article acceptance. Instead, the R&P agreements combine the costs of accessing content via subscriptions (‘Read’) and publishing content via waived APCs (‘Publish’). These are bundled together and paid by the Library to the publisher. These arrangements are not unique to CQU and are common at most university libraries in Australia and New Zealand.
Conversely, the Open Access Journal Scheme is a CQU-only initiative that provides dedicated funding for CQU authors to help pay a portion of their APC in a high-quality Open Access journal. This enables authors to publish in top-tier journals that may have been inaccessible otherwise. Eligibility requirements and application instructions are available on the Open Access Journal Scheme website.
Some publishers will offer you alternate publishing options, which include “mirror” or “sister” journals that have similar-sounding journal titles, but are a fully Open Access alternative. Mirror or sister journals usually have the same editorial board and selection criteria as the journal they are replicating. The APC will only be waived if the alternate title is also covered by an R&P agreement listed on the CAUL Open Access Agreements > 2025 Title List. If you submit to the alternate journal and an R&P agreement does not cover it, you will need to check that you can source funding through the Open Access Journal Scheme or ensure other arrangements are in place to pay the APC.
