The University of Zurich was the first Swiss University to become a member of BioMed Central, an Open Access publisher.

The institutional membership of the University of Zurich enables scientists in natural sciences and medicine to publish their research in one of the more than 200 electronic journals of BioMed Central. With this membership we receive a discount of at least 15% on regular article processing charges. The remaining costs are split equally and covered by the Main Library and by the submitting author (50:50).

In order to profit from this membership conditions every submitted paper must fulfil certain criteria. These can be seen in the Guidelines for publishing with BioMed Central.

Please note, that the membership does not cover publication charges in supplements.

Publications from UZH in BioMed Central journals
BioMed Central

Since May 2011 the University of Zurich is an institutional member of Public Library of Science (PLoS).

All researchers of the University of Zurich can publish their research findings in one of the seven PLoS open access journals with a discount of 10%. In order to receive the discount the corresponding author must be affiliated with the University of Zurich and the University of Zurich must be selected actively as a member institution during the submitting process.

Public Library of Science

The Main Library has now signed up for a partnership deal with Wiley Open Access starting 2012.

This will allow all affiliated researchers to qualify for a 15% discount on the Wiley Open Access and OnlineOpen article publication charges when publishing with open access. When authors submit a paper to a Wiley Open Access journal or opt for OnlineOpen in a traditional journal they need to state their affiliaten in order to qualify for the discount.  

Wiley Open Access has launched new open access journals, but also converted two existing and well-known journals to open access journals.

Wiley Open Access

Since 2005 Oxford University Press has been publishing their top journal Nucleic Acids Research, NAR, with free access: Nucleic Acids Research OA publishing model.

As the University of Zurich is an institutional member of Nucleic Acids Research, Zurich scientists can publish their results with a discount (50%).

Nucleic Acids Research

The University of Zurich has an institutional membership at the publisher Mary Ann Liebert in their Open Option Publishing Plan.

Thus researchers of the Universtiy of Zurich can benefit from reduced publising costs for Open Access, they pay $ 2'000 instead of  $ 3'000 per article. The publisher offers this open access option with a few exeptions to almost all of its journals on article level.
It is important to note that authors are not automatically identified as a part of an institutional member when submitting an article. In order to receive a discount, authors have to mention the fact that they are - due to their affiliation - entitled to reduced charges.

More information about Open Option at Mary Ann Liebert

Overview of Mary Ann Liebert journals

The National Academy of Science offers a discount on article processing charges of open access articles in PNAS.

This discount applies to all authors affiliated with an institution that has a site license for PNAS. This means for authors of the University of Zurich that they can publish with open access at article level for $ 950 instead of $ 1'275. 

More information about PNAS Open Access Option

RSC Publishing offers an open access option at article level for subscription journals.

Authors that are affiliated with a subscribing institution of either the RSC Package A or B are entitled to publish with open access at reduced costs and receive a discount of 15% on the current article processing fees. For the University of Zurich this option applies to all journals within the RSC Gold Package.

Further, in the context of the Gold subscription memberhip at the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the University of Zurich received 12 vouchers by the publisher to publish single articles with open access. All authors affiliated with the University of Zurich, who have an article accepted by RSC, and want it to be published under the open access model, can request a voucher code at the Main Library and confirm that the article has been accepted for publication (see RSC Gold-for-gold program).

More information about RSC Open Science

Authors affiliated with subscribing institutions at Portland Press can publish with open access at article level at reduced costs.

The article processing charges are $ 3'000 instead of $ 3'500. For the University of Zurich this option applies to the three journals Biochemical Journal, Biology of the Cell and Clinical Science.

More information about Opt2Pay

The University of Zurich subscribes to journals of the American Chemical Society. Thus researchers of the University of Zurich can benefit from reducted publishing costs for Open Access.

They pay $ 2'000 instead of $ 3'000 per article (Author Choice, "Affiliated Subscriber"). Contributing authors of the UZH who are members with ACS receive an additional discount and pay $ 1'000 (Author Choice, "ACS Member and Affiliated Subscriber"). These options seem to apply to all journals of ACS.

More information about ACS Author Choice

ACS Author Choice: terms and conditions (PDF)