Authors of an article are responsible for arranging the payment of APC. Still, that typically does not mean that authors end up paying for the publication of the article. The cost of APC is very often assumed either by the organization funding the research published in the article, or by an Open Access Publishing Fund, or by the institution at which the author is employed.

Research funded by an agency that has an Open Access mandate will most probably cover APC by the agency. For a database of Open Access mandates, please visit:

•  SHERPA JULIET
•  Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP):
    Funder Mandates

Lists of Open Access Publishing Funds that could financially support your publication with SCIRP are found at:

•  Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity: Signatories
•  Open Access Directory: OA journal funds
•  Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC):
    Open Access Funds (look under "Funds In Action")
•  Co-Action Publishing: Institutes and Funders Covering Open Access Fees (APCs)

Please also approach your local university or organization to inquire about ways of supporting Open Access publication.

SCIRP offers extremely generous APC reductions to support authors from Low-Income Countries. This scheme is free of any bureaucratic or administrative barriers. To give this scheme a name and to refer to it in an easy way, SCIRP's APC reduction scheme is called SCIRP's Open Access Publishing Fund (SOAPF). In fact SCIRP is subsidizing authors by giving money back to them if compared to the amount of SCIRP's regular APC.

Usually the first author of the paper will also be the corresponding author. SCIRP will just look at the country of origin of this author and will initiate the online invoice accordingly. In case the first author and the corresponding author differ, APC reductions are determined for each author's country of origin and the least favorable APC reduction is used. This is to protect SCIRP from possible unfair exploitation of SOAPF.

When an author submits a manuscript for review at one of SCIRP's journals, the submitted manuscript should not have been previously published in any form and must not be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. The manuscript should also not be submitted to any other journal during the review process at SCIRP. In case the review process at SCIRP takes much longer than stated (FAQ 4.1) and the author wishes to end the review process at SCIRP, he/she should get in contact with the Editorial Assistant of the journal at SCIRP and come to an agreement suitable for both sides after looking at the stage of the manuscript in the review process.

With the APC specified above, the author is given an indication what the APC will be. SCIRP is charging Publication Fees (APC) but not Submission Fees. This is to the benefit to authors because payments are only due once the author knows the manuscript is accepted. SCIRP with editors and reviewers puts much effort in dealing with the manuscript and expects the authors to stick to the common plan of publishing the paper which is linked to payments of APC as given above at the end of the review process. The author is not legally bound at this time, but it would be seen as a strong breach of academic conduct to back off from the publication process. Once the manuscript is accepted for publication, SCIRP will issue an invoice in the Paper Submission and Manuscript Tracking System. This is SCIRP's legal offer and will state the regular APC of the journal or the reduced APC in accordance with SOAPF. The Corresponding Author is expected to arrange payments of the amount stated at this time. If the author thinks APC reduction is not in accordance with SOAPF, this can be discussed and doubt will certainly be addressed. In severe cases SCIRP's Complaints Procedure can be followed and the result of this should be binding to the author.