Open access publishing has changed who can read research: instead of sitting behind a subscription paywall, an open access article is free for any reader, anywhere, from the day it appears. That openness has a cost, and in the open access model much of it is carried by a single charge on the author's side — the Article Processing Charge, or APC. For a well-funded research group, an APC is a routine line in a grant budget. For an early-career scholar or an author working where grant funding is scarce, the same charge can decide whether a finished piece of research is published at all. APC waivers exist to make sure it does not. This guide explains what APCs are, why waivers exist, who qualifies, and how to apply.
An APC is a one-time fee, usually payable after acceptance, that covers the professional work of turning a submission into a published article. That work includes managing the peer review process, editorial assessment, copyediting, typesetting and formatting, hosting it online, and preserving it in the publisher's archive for the long term. Because the author's side covers these costs once, readers pay nothing: the finished article can be read, downloaded, and shared without a subscription. Articles published with Global Academic Publishers appear under a CC BY 4.0 licence, which means anyone may reuse the work as long as they credit the original authors. APC amounts vary widely between journals and fields, which is why every journal should state its charges openly, before authors submit.
Waivers exist because research talent is distributed far more evenly around the world than research funding: valuable studies come from under-funded universities, small colleges, and independent practice, not only wealthy research centres. If publication depended only on the ability to pay, the published record would quietly exclude many of those voices. A waiver policy keeps two questions separate that should never be merged: is this research good enough to publish, and can this author pay the full charge today? The first question belongs to peer review. The second is an administrative matter, and waivers are the tool publishers use to answer it fairly.
Waiver policies differ from publisher to publisher, but most consider requests from some or all of the following groups:
A full waiver removes the entire APC: the author pays nothing, and the article is published on exactly the same terms as any other — openly accessible, CC BY 4.0 licensed, and presented identically in the journal. A partial waiver reduces the charge by a proportion set by the publisher's policy, leaving a smaller amount for the author or their institution to cover. Partial waivers are common where an author has some support — a small grant or a departmental contribution, for example — but not enough for the full fee. In both cases, the waiver concerns only the invoice. It neither buys nor implies any editorial outcome.
Ask early — before or at submission. An author who asks only after acceptance — or after an invoice has been issued — is asking the publisher to unwind a finished process. Most journals ask you to raise the request during submission itself, so it can be recorded alongside your manuscript. Before submitting anywhere, read the journal's fees and waiver policy; ours is on our policies page.
Write a short, factual request. There is no need to plead, and you should never exaggerate. A good waiver request states, in a few sentences: your name and affiliation; your country; whether the work received funding, and from whom; and a plain explanation of why the full APC is not payable in your case. If the manuscript comes from your doctoral research or from an unfunded project, say so — that context matters to the decision.
Attach supporting documents where you can. Helpful evidence includes a letter from your institution confirming no publication funds are available, a funding statement showing your grant excludes APCs, or proof of student or early-career status. Not every publisher requires documents, but they usually make the decision faster. At Global Academic Publishers, you can raise a waiver request when you submit your manuscript; it is handled administratively, separately from the editors and reviewers assessing your paper.
A waiver is need-based: the publisher examines the author's circumstances and exempts them from all or part of the charge. A discount is a price reduction that does not depend on need — it might apply to society members, certain article types, or a promotion. An institutional membership or agreement is different again: a university or funder pays the publisher centrally, under an annual membership or publishing agreement, so its authors pay less, or nothing, when they submit — the cost has been covered, not forgiven. In short: if you cannot pay, what you need is a waiver; if your institution holds an agreement, check whether it already covers you before paying anything yourself.
A waiver policy is also a useful honesty test for a journal. Treat the following as warning signs: a journal that hints payment will secure acceptance, or a faster positive decision; charges that are revealed only after a paper has been accepted; a "waiver" advertised as marketing while authors are still pressured to pay in full before publication; or no written fees and waiver policy at all. The underlying principle is absolute: at a legitimate journal, payment never decides acceptance, and inability to pay never decides rejection. Editorial decisions rest on peer review — the quality, originality, and ethics of the work — and on nothing else. If a journal behaves otherwise, do not submit there, whether you can afford its charges or not.
Understanding a waiver is easier once you understand the charge itself. An APC is not a payment for acceptance, and it is not a payment to reviewers. In most legitimate open access journals, peer reviewers are unpaid volunteers who assess manuscripts because they are part of the scholarly community, not because they receive a share of the fee. The APC instead covers the professional and technical work that surrounds review and publication. That work begins before review, when an editorial office checks that a submission is complete, in scope, and formatted for assessment, and continues through the management of correspondence with authors, reviewers, and editors. After acceptance, it covers copyediting for clarity and consistency, the preparation of tables and figures, typesetting into a readable published layout, the assignment of article metadata, online hosting, and long-term archiving so the article remains retrievable years later.
Knowing this breakdown matters for waiver applicants for two reasons. First, it explains why a waiver is a real concession by the publisher rather than a formality: when a fee is waived, the publisher still carries those costs. A request should therefore be made respectfully and with enough information for the publisher to make a fair decision. Second, it clarifies what a waiver does not cover. An APC waiver normally covers only the publication charge itself. It does not usually cover optional extras that a journal may offer separately, such as printed copies, colour printing where that is charged separately, translation, or extensive language editing beyond the journal's standard copyediting. If you need one of those services, ask whether it is included or charged separately before you assume the waiver covers it. Equally, a waiver does not change the licence under which your article is published, the way it is displayed, or the rights you retain as an author. Those terms are set by the journal's publishing policy and apply to every article in the same way.
It is also worth distinguishing the APC from other costs an author may meet along the way. Conference registration, data collection, laboratory consumables, and open data deposit charges are research costs, not publication charges, and a journal waiver will not normally reimburse them. If your project budget is tight, it helps to separate these categories in your own planning: the waiver addresses the publication invoice, while research costs need to be addressed through your institution, funder, or project budget. Keeping that distinction clear also makes a waiver request stronger, because you can state precisely which cost you are asking to have waived and why that specific cost cannot be met.
No single global rule governs APC waivers, because each publisher sets its own policy. Even so, most policies work from a small set of recurring principles, and understanding them helps you judge where you stand before you apply. The first principle is usually the affiliation of the corresponding author. Many publishers base eligibility on the institution and country of the corresponding author rather than on the nationality of any individual author, because the corresponding author is the person responsible for the submission and, in practice, for the publication invoice. If your co-authors are based in different countries, check which author's affiliation the policy uses; in a multi-author paper, that detail can change the outcome, and it is better to confirm it at submission than to discover it after acceptance.
The second principle is country income classification. Some publishers publish a list of countries whose authors qualify automatically for a full waiver, and a second list for a partial waiver, often aligned with widely used international income groupings or with access programmes for low- and middle-income countries. Other publishers do not publish a fixed list at all and instead consider each request on its merits. Neither approach is inherently more generous: an automatic list gives certainty, while a case-by-case policy can help an author who falls outside a list but still has no publication funding. The practical lesson is the same in both cases — read the journal's own policy rather than assuming that eligibility at one journal guarantees eligibility at another.
The third principle is funding status. A publisher will usually ask whether the research was funded, and if so, whether the funder allows its grant to be used for publication charges. A grant that explicitly excludes APCs, or a grant that has closed before submission, is materially different from a current grant with an unspent publication allowance, and a good request explains that difference plainly. The fourth principle is career stage and institutional resources. Doctoral candidates, early-career researchers, scholars at teaching-focused institutions without a publication fund, and independent researchers are commonly considered, but career stage alone rarely decides a request: it is considered alongside funding and affiliation. Finally, some journals add time-limited criteria of their own, such as a launch-phase waiver for a new journal, a waiver for a special issue, or a waiver tied to a society membership. Those offers are real, but they are also temporary, so always check whether the offer is still current at the time you submit.
A waiver application is a short administrative process, and it goes most smoothly when it is treated as part of submission planning rather than as an afterthought. The steps below describe the sequence most authors follow; the exact mechanism — a tick box in the submission system, an email to the editorial office, or a form on the journal's website — varies by publisher, so adapt the sequence to the journal you have chosen.
Step 1: Read the fees and waiver policy before you choose the journal. Look for the APC amount, the waiver criteria, the deadline for requests, and whether requests are decided before or after peer review. If the policy is not published, that absence is itself information: a legitimate journal should be willing to state its charges and its waiver terms in writing. Write down the name of the policy page and the date you read it, so you can refer to it accurately in your request.
Step 2: Confirm who should make the request. In most cases this is the corresponding author, because that author manages the submission and the invoice. Agree this with your co-authors before submitting, and make sure the corresponding author's affiliation and contact details in the submission system match the institution named in any supporting letter. A mismatch between the affiliation on the manuscript and the affiliation on the supporting documents is one of the most common avoidable causes of delay.
Step 3: Gather your evidence before you submit. Useful documents include a brief letter from your institution or department stating that no publication funds are available, a funding statement or grant letter showing that APCs are excluded or that the grant has ended, or confirmation of student or early-career status where that is relevant to the policy. You do not need a long dossier. One or two clear documents, directly relevant to the criteria in the policy, are more persuasive than a large bundle of unrelated material.
Step 4: Make the request at submission, in the place the journal specifies. State your name, affiliation, and country; whether the work was funded and, if so, by whom and on what terms; and a plain explanation of why the full APC cannot be paid. If the submission system has a dedicated waiver field, use it rather than burying the request in a cover letter that may not reach the right person. If the journal asks for an email instead, send it to the address given in the policy and keep a copy.
Step 5: Keep the two processes separate in your own mind. After submission, your manuscript goes to editorial assessment and peer review, while your waiver request goes to the publisher's administrative team. Do not mention the waiver in the manuscript itself, and do not contact reviewers about it; reviewers should not be involved in the financial decision at all. If an editor asks for a revision, respond to the revision on its scholarly merits, exactly as you would if you were paying in full.
Step 6: Respond promptly to any follow-up questions. A publisher may ask for clarification — for example, whether a co-author's institution can contribute, or whether a funder can cover part of the charge. Answering promptly and honestly keeps the decision moving. If the decision arrives before acceptance, note whether it is conditional: some waivers are granted in principle at submission and confirmed only if the paper is accepted, which is a sensible arrangement, since no charge arises unless the paper is published.
Step 7: If the paper is accepted, check the invoice against the decision. A full waiver should mean no APC invoice; a partial waiver should mean an invoice for the agreed reduced amount only. If the invoice does not match the decision, query it with the administrative contact before paying anything, and keep the waiver decision message as your record. Do not pay an incorrect invoice in the hope of sorting it out later, because refunds are almost always harder to arrange than corrections made before payment.
General policy language becomes clearer with concrete situations. The four examples below are illustrative only — they describe the kinds of cases publishers commonly see, not guarantees about any particular journal's decision — but they show how the same principles play out differently depending on funding, affiliation, and timing.
Example 1: A doctoral candidate with an unfunded thesis chapter. A doctoral student has completed a study as part of her thesis, with no external grant and no departmental publication fund. She is the corresponding author, and her institution confirms in writing that no publication funds are available. She raises the waiver request at submission, attaches the institutional letter, and states plainly that the work is unfunded doctoral research. This is a straightforward case under many policies, because the funding position is clear and the evidence is direct. The strength of the request lies in its specificity: it names the funding position rather than simply saying that payment would be difficult.
Example 2: An early-career researcher with a small, closed grant. A researcher in a lower-middle-income country completed a field study under a small grant that covered fieldwork but not publication, and the grant has now closed. He has a modest departmental contribution available, but it does not cover the full APC. Here, a partial waiver is the natural request: he explains what funding existed, what it covered, what remains available, and what shortfall remains. A request framed this way is stronger than a request for a full waiver that omits the partial funding, because it gives the publisher an accurate picture and a proportionate option to grant.
Example 3: A multi-author team spread across institutions. A paper has authors at three institutions in different countries, one of which holds a publishing agreement with the journal's publisher and two of which do not. The corresponding author checks the policy before submission and discovers that eligibility is assessed on the corresponding author's affiliation, and that an institutional agreement held by a co-author's institution may still cover the paper if that author is named appropriately. By clarifying this before submission, the team avoids paying personally for a charge that was already covered, and avoids a waiver request that was never needed. The lesson is to check institutional coverage first: a waiver is the remedy when no other route covers the charge, not the first step when one already does.
Example 4: An author submitting during a journal's launch phase. A veterinary researcher submits to a newly launched journal that has announced an inaugural waiver for its early authors. She confirms on the journal's own pages that the offer is still current, submits within the launch period, and raises the request at submission as instructed. The waiver here does not depend on her funding position at all; it depends on timing and on the journal's launch policy. That is why launch-phase offers should always be verified at the time of submission rather than assumed from an announcement made months earlier — launch offers end, and a paper submitted after the offer closes is assessed under the journal's standard policy.
A waiver request does not need to be long, formal, or emotional. Publishers decide these requests administratively, and what they need is accurate information, presented clearly. The template below can be adapted to most journals; replace the bracketed details with your own, delete any line that does not apply, and keep the whole request to a short paragraph or two unless the journal asks for more.
Dear Editorial Office, I am writing to request consideration for an APC waiver for the manuscript titled "[manuscript title]", submitted by me as corresponding author. I am based at [institution, country]. The research reported in this manuscript [received no external funding / was funded by (funder), whose grant (excludes article processing charges / has now closed)]. [My institution has no publication fund available for this work, as confirmed in the attached letter / I am a doctoral candidate and this work forms part of my thesis research]. I would be grateful if you would consider [a full waiver / a partial waiver, noting that (amount or source, if any) is available toward the charge]. I understand that this request is considered separately from peer review. Thank you for your consideration. [Name, affiliation, contact details.]
Three habits make a request like this effective. First, be specific about funding: name the funder or state plainly that there was none, and say whether APCs were eligible under the grant. Second, attach evidence that matches your statements, rather than evidence for a different point. A letter confirming student status does not prove that no publication funds exist, and a grant letter does not prove that APCs were excluded; match the document to the claim. Third, keep the tone factual and professional. Reviewers and editors never see this correspondence in a properly run journal, but the administrative staff who do see it decide many such requests, and a clear, honest, well-organised request is easier to approve than a vague one. Avoid overstating hardship, avoid personal financial details that the policy does not ask for, and never suggest that a waiver should influence the editorial decision — that suggestion, even if unintended, undermines the separation between payment and review that protects authors.
A declined waiver request is disappointing, but it is not the end of the road, and it does not reflect on the quality of your manuscript. The first step is to read the decision carefully: was the request declined outright, or was a partial waiver offered instead of a full one? Was a reason given, such as eligibility criteria that were not met, missing documentation, or a request made after the deadline? If the reason is a missing document or a misunderstanding — for example, the publisher assumed a grant covered APCs when it did not — a polite clarification with the correct document may resolve the matter. If the decision is final under the policy, the next step is to consider the remaining options in order, without rushing into any of them.
Check first whether any co-author's institution holds a publishing agreement or membership that covers the paper, since that route is often overlooked in multi-author teams. Check second whether your funder, institution, or department has a separate publication fund, a discretionary research allowance, or a process for retrospective publication support; some institutions can contribute even when no dedicated fund was budgeted at the start of the project. Check third whether a partial waiver, if offered, makes the remaining amount manageable when combined with a departmental contribution. Only after those routes have been explored should you consider timing: if the journal offers periodic waivers, if a launch-phase offer is expected, or if a new grant period will open a publication budget, it may be reasonable to hold the manuscript and submit later — but weigh that delay against the risk that the research becomes outdated or that another group publishes similar work first. What you should not do is turn to a journal that promises acceptance in exchange for payment, or that has no transparent fees policy, simply because it appears cheaper or faster. A publication that damages your reputation costs far more than any APC saved.
Finally, keep a record of the decision and the policy as it stood when you applied. Policies change, eligibility lists are revised, and a request declined under one year's policy may succeed under a later one, or at a different journal with different criteria. That record also protects you if you later submit a revised version of the same work elsewhere: you can make a fresh, accurate request without relying on memory about what was previously submitted or decided.
In a single-author paper, the waiver conversation is simple: one author, one affiliation, one funding position. In a multi-author paper, it needs a brief conversation among the authors before submission, because the corresponding author will usually be the person named on the waiver request and on any invoice. Agree who the corresponding author will be, confirm that author's affiliation as it will appear on the manuscript, and discuss openly whether any author's institution can cover the charge. This is not an awkward conversation to have early; it becomes awkward only if it is left until an invoice arrives and nobody budgeted for it.
Two practical points deserve attention. First, authorship order and corresponding authorship are scholarly decisions, not financial tactics: do not change the corresponding author solely to obtain a waiver, and do not add or remove an author for financial reasons. A publisher that discovers such a change may reasonably question the integrity of the submission, and the reputational risk far outweighs any fee saved. Second, the funding statement in the published article should reflect the real funding position, including the fact that publication was supported by a waiver where the journal's policy asks for that acknowledgement. Some journals ask authors to acknowledge waiver support in the article; others handle it purely administratively. Follow the journal's instruction, and make sure the statement is accurate: if a funder supported the research but not the publication charge, say so, rather than implying broader support than the funder gave.
A short checklist, worked through before submission, prevents most waiver problems. Ask the journal, in its published policies or by email to the editorial office: What is the current APC, and is it stated openly before submission? Does the journal offer full waivers, partial waivers, or both, and under what criteria? Is eligibility assessed on the corresponding author's affiliation, and what happens in a multi-author paper? By when must a waiver be requested — at submission, or is a later request accepted? What documents, if any, are required, and how long does a decision usually take? Is a waiver granted at submission conditional on acceptance, or confirmed outright? Does the journal hold an institutional agreement with your institution that would cover the charge without a waiver? And finally, is the waiver decision genuinely separate from peer review — are reviewers told nothing about it? A journal that answers these questions clearly, in writing, is demonstrating the transparency that a waiver policy is meant to embody. A journal that cannot answer them, or that ties payment to a faster or more favourable decision, is giving you a reason to look elsewhere, however attractive its scope or turnaround may appear.
For authors considering Global Academic Publishers, the equivalent starting points are the journal's own pages: the journals page for the current position of the Global Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, the policies page for fees and waiver terms, and the manuscript submission page for raising a request at submission. Reading those pages first, and raising the request at submission rather than after acceptance, remains the single most reliable way to ensure a waiver request is considered promptly and fairly.
Most delayed waiver requests are delayed for avoidable reasons. The most common is timing: a request made only after acceptance, or after an invoice has been issued, forces the publisher to reopen a completed administrative step, and some policies do not permit that at all. The second is vagueness: a request that says payment would be "difficult" without explaining the funding position, the grant terms, or the institutional position gives the publisher nothing concrete to assess. The third is mismatched documentation, where the affiliation on the manuscript, the affiliation in the submission system, and the affiliation on a supporting letter all differ, leaving the publisher unsure which institution the request actually concerns. The fourth is asking the wrong people: mentioning the waiver to reviewers, or raising it in a response to reviewers, confuses two processes that must stay separate. The fifth is assuming coverage: assuming that a co-author's institution, a funder, or a previous waiver at another journal automatically covers the current paper, without checking the current journal's policy. Each of these mistakes is easy to avoid with the checklist in the previous section, and avoiding them is often the difference between a decision in days and a decision delayed until after acceptance, when options are narrower.
| Support type | Who can get it | How to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Full waiver | Authors from low-income countries or with no funding | Request before submission, with proof |
| Partial discount | Authors with limited institutional funding | Apply through the journal waiver form |
| Institutional deal | Authors at member universities | Check your library agreement first |
| Society discount | Members of the sponsoring society | Use the member code at submission |
| Research4Life | Researchers in eligible countries | research4life.org |
These authoritative external resources explain the standards and tools mentioned in this guide:
Does requesting a waiver affect the decision on my paper?
No. Manuscripts are assessed through peer review on their scholarly merit, while waiver requests are handled administratively, entirely apart. Reviewers judge the paper, not your bank balance.
When is the best time to ask for a waiver?
Before or during submission. Requests raised at submission are recorded with your manuscript and decided promptly; requests made after acceptance or invoicing are far harder to accommodate. Check the journal's policies page first.
What is the difference between a waiver and a discount?
A waiver is granted because of an author's circumstances — limited funding, career stage, or location — and removes all or part of the charge. A discount is a general price reduction that does not depend on need, such as a membership or promotional rate.
My research has some funding, but not enough for the full APC. Can I still apply?
Yes. That is exactly the situation partial waivers are designed for. Explain honestly what funding you have and what it can and cannot cover, and support it with documents if you can.
Is there a waiver available at GJVAS right now?
Yes. The Global Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences has announced an inaugural fee waiver for its launch phase — see our journals page for details, and raise any waiver request when you submit.
Can I apply for a waiver if I am not the corresponding author?
Usually the corresponding author makes the request, because that author manages the submission and any invoice. If you are not the corresponding author, agree with that author before submission that a request will be made, and make sure the funding and affiliation details supplied are accurate for the paper as a whole.
Does a waiver change how my article appears or what licence it carries?
No. A waived article is published on the same terms as any other article in the journal — the same layout, the same licence, and the same availability to readers. At Global Academic Publishers, articles appear under a CC BY 4.0 licence, whether or not a waiver was granted.
What documents should I attach to a waiver request?
Attach only documents that support the criteria in the journal's policy: typically a short institutional letter confirming that no publication funds are available, a grant document showing that APCs are excluded or that the grant has closed, or confirmation of student or early-career status where the policy asks for it. One or two relevant documents are better than a large, unfocused bundle.
Can I request a waiver again if my first request is declined?
That depends on the reason. If the decline was due to missing documents or a misunderstanding about your funding, a polite clarification with the correct evidence may be accepted. If the decline was a final decision under the policy, you may still be able to seek a partial waiver, institutional support, or a funder contribution, or to submit to a journal with different criteria. Keep a record of the decision and the policy as it stood.
Should I mention the waiver in my manuscript or cover letter?
Do not mention it in the manuscript itself. If the journal's submission system has a dedicated waiver field or asks for a separate email, use that route. The manuscript and the peer review process should contain no reference to payment, so that reviewers judge the work on its scholarly merit alone.
What if my institution already has an agreement with the publisher?
Check that first, before requesting a waiver. Under an institutional membership or publishing agreement, the institution pays centrally and its authors may already be covered in full or in part. A waiver is the route to use when no such agreement covers your paper; applying for both without checking can cause confusion and delay.
Ready to publish your research? Do not let a processing charge keep a good paper in a drawer. Explore the journal, read the policies, and submit your manuscript — and if you need a waiver, tell us when you submit; we will assess the request fairly, separately from your paper.
Looking to publish your work in veterinary and animal sciences? Explore our Peer-Reviewed Journals and check out our publishing options. For further assistance, visit our Author Support Services.
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