1. What is open access?
Universities cannot afford to subscribe to all journals and acquire all books of interest to academics and researchers, and access costs are a barrier to those in certain sectors and in developing countries. Open access makes scholarly research literature freely and immediately available online, enabling readers anywhere in the world to find and use it regardless of economic circumstances. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of articles and chapters without financial, legal or technical barriers, subject to proper attribution to the original source.
2. Why publish with Global Century Press?
Global Century Press is the first publisher in the world dedicated to publishing academic and popular publications bilingually in the social sciences and humanities. Its bilingual journals and books serve the purposes of disseminating related academic research, knowledge transfer and public education globally. Global Century Press is the only independent platform for uncensored work on China.
Global Century Press supports and encourages the publication of open access content in its journals, books and other scholarly publications. Global Century Press ensures that all open access content is freely available on its website or other designated platforms without any subscription or access fees.
3. Open access and Global Century Press
Open access journals have been developed and refined in the West over the last 20 years but open access books are less common. However, open access books are well established in China and Global Century Press aims to be among the publishers pioneering this approach to books in the Western world, taking the knowledge and experience gained in China and bringing it to the West.
Global Century Press contributor agreements are based on the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. The principles of this license can be viewed on the Creative Commons website.
This license does not allow the creation of derived works or changes to a published work such as the right to translate, adapt, abridge, etc. Global Century Press prefers to use this license because we believe that the unlimited and unrestricted re-use allowed under the Creative Commons ‘CC BY’ license will lead to violation of the author’s moral rights and that commercial re-use should be licensed to protect the author. Furthermore, where content in a work is identified as belonging to a third party, it is the obligation of the user to ensure that any re-use complies with the policies of the copyright owner. As the publisher, it is our role to make this clear to any potential licensee of a work.
4. What is a ‘processing charge’?
The payment of an article processing charge (APC), a journal or book processing charge (JPC or BPC), or a chapter processing charge (CPC) funds the publication of academic and research works for open access. APC/CPCs and JPC/BPCs are an alternative to traditional subscription fees, with the benefit that all content is openly and freely available online for anybody to read, download and share, fostering scholarly collaboration and innovation. APC/CPCs and JPC/BPCs are the main revenue streams of Global Century Press and defray the costs of peer review, copyediting, proofreading, typesetting, production, digital hosting, dissemination and promotion, sustaining our high-quality publishing services while also providing financial support for the development of journals and books. A processing charge is usually covered by an author’s research organisation or by funding grants.
Global Century Press values its independence and uncensored publications. We will not censor, remove or moderate content, titles or topics in return for funding or subsidies.
4.1 The article processing charge (APC) for journals is £1,250–£1,750 per article (works with many images, such as photographs, tables and diagrams, and works of greater than average length will be charged the higher fee). A journal processing charge (JPC) is usually the sum of the APCs for an issue, and is applied per issue. Fellows of the Global China Academy are eligible for a discount. Rates do not include VAT, which will be charged where appropriate.
4.2 The chapter processing charge (CPC) for monographs, book chapters or edited collections is £900–£1,400 per chapter (works with many images, such as photographs, tables and diagrams, and works of greater than average length will be charged the higher fee). A book processing charge (BPC) is usually the sum of the CPCs for a book. Fellows of the Global China Academy are eligible for a discount. Rates do not include VAT, which will be charged where appropriate.
5. The open access publication process
Please ensure that you have funding in place before submitting to the appropriate Global Century Press journal or committing to pay any open access charges. Having funding in place does not guarantee publication. A work must meet the Global Century Press standards for scholarship and must pass peer review. Payment will not be taken until an article, chapter or book is accepted.
You will be asked to sign an agreement that enables Global Century Press to publish the work as the final, definitive and citable version of scholarly record. The agreement outlines the rights that Global Century Press intends to grant to end-users and spells out some restrictions on re-use such as no commercial use and no creation of derivative products.
Where a work is co-authored, you must warrant that you have the consent of all co-authors to submit the work for publication and that you have the right to sign the agreement on their behalf.
5.1 If before publication we reasonably consider that the work should not be published, based on the advice of peer reviewer/s or our legal counsel, according to circumstances, we may decline to publish the work, and in which case Global Century Press would refund 90 percent of the APC/CPC or BPC, less the cost of any legal advice.
5.2 If after publication we reasonably consider that the work should be retracted or removed from our website, for example because of a breach in author warranties, we may retract and withdraw it, in which case Global Century Press will be under no obligation to refund the APC/CPC or BPC.
6. APC/JPC and CPC/BPC funding resources
There are three types of funding sources for potential subsidies for APC/CPCs or JPC/BPCs:
6.1 State funding bodies:
- UKRI: https://www.ukri.org/manage-your-award/publishing-your-research-findings/open-access-funding-and-reporting
- Dutch National: https://www.openaccess.nl/en/what-is-open-access/funding
6.2 Universities or research institutions:
- Universities can offer funding for APCs, e.g. University of Oxford
- Some offer funds for both APC/CPCs or JPC/BPCs, e.g. Lund University Library
- EPFL (Swiss university)
6.3 Publishers or journals:
- Most publishers offer funds for APCs, e.g. Taylor & Francis
- Some offer funds for both APC/CPCs or JPC/BPCs, e.g. Ubiquity Press and MDPI
6.4 In addition to the above, Global China Academy, the parent company of Global Century Press, will consider funding high-quality academic works by authors who are unable to fund an APC/CPCs or JPC/BPCs from other sources.
7. Further information
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this open access policy, please contact us.
