What is the SPF?

The UMass Lowell Sustainable Publishing Fund (SPF) is a partnership between the Office of Sustainability and the UMass Lowell University Library. The SPF is designed to engage researchers with sustainability topics, encourage and enable UML authors to publish their research and scholarship within the open access (OA) community, and increase access to the research and scholarship of UML. 
Each spring, the UML SPF is available to support researchers. The SPF underwrites reasonable article-processing charges (APCs) or similar publishing support for open access journals when funds are not otherwise available.  Authors can receive up to $1,500 for OA publishing support. Submissions will be reviewed by a committee of faculty and staff from Sustainability, the University Library, and other departments. The review committee will accept applications on a rolling basis during spring 2022 until funds are exhausted.

SPF Goals

The goals of the SPF are to: 
  • Engage the UML community with issues and topics in sustainability, defined broadly and across all disciplines. 
  • Encourage open access publishing and expand the number of UML authors publishing in OA locations, by supporting faculty, students, and staff who may wish to publish in open-access journals but lack other sources of funding for OA publishing support. 
  • Increase access to and use of UML research and scholarship in UML courses. 

SPF Guidelines

Eligible applications will support the open access publication of completed manuscripts that have been reviewed and accepted for publication but are not yet published. This can include: 
  • Scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles. 
  • Chapters or contributions to peer-reviewed scholarly books (not textbooks). 
  • Scholarly peer-reviewed books. 
Eligible publications and publishing venues must be fully and immediately open access. Publications in “hybrid open-access” (which also charge subscription fees) or “delayed open-access” journals and monographs are not eligible.  

Application Details

Each year $6,000 will be available in the SPF. All applications must meet the following eligibility criteria to receive up to $1,500: 
  • The applicant is a current UML faculty member, instructor, post-doctoral researcher, staff member, or graduate student.  Emeritus faculty members are eligible if the research was completed while they were still affiliated with UML. 
  • The applicant must be the primary or corresponding author. 
  • The manuscript must have been accepted and proof of acceptance must be provided with the application. 
  • Authors that have alternative funding available through grants are not eligible for reimbursement. 
  • Manuscripts must be deposited into the appropriate community collection at Scholarship@UMass Lowell, UML’s OA institutional repository.  
  • The manuscript must be a contribution to a book or a scholarly article. 
  • The journal or book must be fully open access and listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) / Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB).  If the journal or book is too new to be listed in either directory, the publication must be completely DOAJ / DOAB compliant.  
  • The publication must allow authors to retain copyright. 
  • The publication must allow author to use Creative Commons (or equivalent) licenses at no additional cost. 
Awards will be made to those applicants whose scholarship best engages with sustainability topics; further positive consideration will be given to works that support the learning and teaching goals of the University. Authors are limited to one award per year. 

Administration of Award

The Office of Sustainability administers the program funding and will transfer funds to the successful applicant’s department. Each department can arrange the payment to the OA journal in whatever method they choose. Each application will identify the department financial staff member to coordinate funding. The deadline for invoice submission for fund transfer is the last day of May.