The UIC Research Open Access Publishing Fund supports faculty, researchers, staff, post-docs, and students who want to make their journal articles free to all readers immediately upon publication, but are not supported by grants or contracts with funds to help cover open access or paid access publishing fees. The ROAPP fund provides financial support towards both open access fees and those to commercial and not-for-profit publishers who provide open access to an article immediately upon publication for an additional fee.

Studies show open access increases citation and other recognition of published research. The goals of the fund are to:

provide seamless access to UIC-authored journal articles;

support reform of traditional scholarly journal publishing;

recognize that many commercial and not-for-profit publishers will provide open access to an article immediately upon publication for an additional fee;

provide support to authors who are not funded by grants or contracts with funds to help cover open access and paid access publishing fees.

Funding for this program comes from the University Library, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research.