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IOP Science

Paying for open access

General information

To find out more about charges and costs associated with open access publication please visit our Article Publication Charges information page. 

Open access article publication charges (APCs) should not be a barrier to publishing your work openly and we strive to assist as many authors as possible to do so. 

Increasingly, funders and universities (often through the library) will cover the costs of open access publication. Many research grants allow funds to be used for APCs and funders may operate dedicated publishing funds. Departmental funds or central institutional funds administered by your research office or library may be available. We encourage you to consult your funder and institutional library to find out what support is available but please contact the journal team if you require any support. 

APCs can be paid using our simple online charging service, or we accept payment against invoice or a prepayment account for institutions and funders. 

Transformative and institutional open access agreements

IOP has established agreements to enable authors from a variety of institutions to publish on an open access basis at no cost to themselves. Further details about these agreements can be found on our transformative agreement hub.

Use IOPP Journal Finder to see if you might be covered by a transformative agreement.

Go to IOPP Journal Finder

Visit our transformative agreement hub for more information and support on transformative agreements.

Waivers and discounts

APC waivers for authors based in low-income countries

Authors based in low-income countries (as defined by the World Bank as of July 2023 and listed in ‘Group A’ below) receive a full APC waiver (100% discount) in any IOP-owned journal if certain criteria are met:

  • If all authors are from a Group A country then a full APC waiver will be applied automatically and there will be no charge;
  • If the corresponding author plus the majority of co-authors are from a Group A country then a full APC waiver will be granted on request. Requests must be made when the article is submitted and will not be considered at a later stage.

When publishing work in one of IOP’s hybrid journals, authors have the option to opt out of open access publication if preferred.

Reduced APCs for authors based in lower-middle income countries

Corresponding authors based in lower middle-income countries (as defined by the World Bank as of July 2022 and listed in ‘Group B’ below) are eligible for a reduced APC in any IOP-owned journal if a pre-existing arrangement is not already in place to cover the costs of open access publication. These agreements are listed here. Authors must select the reduced fee at the point of submission.

Please see the publication charges information for any journal published by IOP Publishing to confirm if it offers these waivers and discounts.

Group A: low-income countries

  • Afghanistan
  • Burkina Faso
  • Burundi
  • Central African Republic
  • Chad
  • Congo, Dem. Rep
  • Eritrea
  • Ethiopia
  • Gambia, The
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Korea, Dem. People’s Rep.
  • Liberia
  • Madagascar
  • Malawi
  • Mali
  • Mozambique
  • Niger
  • Rwanda
  • Sierra Leone
  • Somalia
  • South Sudan
  • Sudan
  • Syrian Arab Republic
  • Togo
  • Uganda
  • Yemen, Rep.

Group B: lower middle-income countries

  • Algeria
  • Angola
  • Bangladesh
  • Benin
  • Bhutan
  • Bolivia
  • Cabo Verde
  • Cambodia
  • Cameroon
  • Comoros
  • Congo, Rep.
  • Côte d’Ivoire
  • Djibouti
  • Egypt, Arab Rep.
  • Eswatini
  • Ghana
  • Guinea
  • Haiti
  • Honduras
  • India
  • Jordan
  • Kenya
  • Kiribati
  • Kyrgyz Republic
  • Lao PDR
  • Lebanon
  • Lesotho
  • Mauritania
  • Micronesia, Fed. Sts.
  • Mongolia
  • Morocco
  • Myanmar
  • Nepal
  • Nicaragua
  • Nigeria
  • Pakistan
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Philippines
  • Samoa
  • São Tomé and Principe
  • Senegal
  • Solomon Islands
  • Sri Lanka
  • Tanzania
  • Tajikistan
  • Timor-Leste
  • Tunisia
  • Ukraine*
  • Uzbekistan
  • Vanuatu
  • Vietnam
  • Zambia
  • Zimbabwe

Please note that between January and June 2024, authors from an additional list of countries will be eligible for the reduced article publication charge when they publish in Journal of Physics Communications. More information can be found here.

*Please note: APCs are currently fully waived for corresponding authors based in Ukraine. See our Statement on Ukraine – IOP Publishing for more details.


Applications for discretionary APC waivers for authors from other countries who are unable to pay an article publication charge will be considered on a case-by-case basis. All applications for a discretionary waiver must be made by email to the journal office at the point of submission. Applications made once a paper has entered peer review or has been accepted will not be considered.

Reviewer rewards

In recognition of the contribution made by our reviewers, IOP has introduced a reviewer reward scheme. Reviewers who review articles for selected journals from our portfolio receive a 10% credit. Credit can be used towards the cost of publishing an article a reviewer has contributed to, on a gold open access basis. A reviewer reward credit will be given for every review completed.

Membership discounts

Authors of articles in fully gold open access journals who are members of the Institute of Physics and certain affiliated societies are entitled to discounted APCs. For details, see the individual journal web pages.