Open Access Program

Important Note - New

We are currently updating the policies and workflows for the Publishing Fund, along with several publishing agreements (including those for gold open access journals). At this time, we are not processing funding requests until further notice, including requests for fully open access journals from Springer Nature and Elsevier. We will announce when we will resume accepting requests in this regard in February. For an updated list of active agreements, please visit our “Publishing Agreements” page.

Kindly note that confirmation of funding is dependent on the availability of funds at the time of the request.

Open access refers to free and instant unrestricted online access to research publications. Open access removes barriers to accessing research and ensures that your work reaches the widest possible audience, which increases the number of readers, citations, improves reproducibility and re-use of content.

We offer a broad variety of services to support global dissemination of and unrestricted access to Qatar-based research:

Open access agreements with publishers so that Qatar-based researchers are not required to pay publishing fees
Providing an article processing charge (APC) fund to cover the cost of article processing charges in open access journals
Supporting alternative open access business models, such as the Open Library of the Humanities, and international open access initiatives, such as INTACT’s OpenAPC project and Open Access 2020
Running events and training sessions
Developing the Library's digital repository to support a permanent archive of Qatar-based research
Provide information and advice to researchers about open access publishing

You are eligible for funding if you:

Are the corresponding author

Are affiliated with a Qatar-based non-profit institution

Have exhausted other available funding sources such as publication funds available in QNRF grants and institutional/university funds

How do you get funding? We have two routes:

Option 1 : Publishing Agreements Use one of our agreements with publishers* that allow you to publish in open access without additional cost to you * Check our “Publishing Agreements” page for the agreements status and latest updates

Option 2 : Open Access Fund Application Submit an application if your publisher of choice is not part of our agreements
Criteria:

Journal in Directory of Open Access Journals
We cover up to 3,000 USD
Authors limited to three articles per year

In 2023, we:

Funded 1,274 articles

Supported 688 authors
from 26institutions in Qatar