The College of Graduate Studies has launched a pilot program to help students and postdoctoral scholars get their research published in open access journals.

Awards of up to $1,500 are now available to pay for article processing charges. The awards will be given on a first-come-first-served basis until the funds run out. About $75,000 are available to eligible students who apply.

“Part of the graduate school experience is working on getting your own work published,” said Dr. John Weishampel, Sr. Associate Dean in the College of Graduate Studies. “Getting your work published is an expensive endeavor even for faculty, but it is important…. We hope this contribution will encourage and help our students and postdoctoral scholars with the publishing process.”

The program is open to graduate students and postdoctoral scholars (within a year of graduation or employment) who meet the following requirements:

• The student is the first author of the publication and was enrolled or employed at UCF within one year of the acceptance of the manuscript.

• The research occurred while the applicant was affiliated with UCF and UCF is listed as the current or past institution of the first author.

• The journal is listed in the Directory for Open Access Journals.

• The publisher is a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association or adheres to its code of conduct

• The research was not funded by an agency that has a public access mandate (NIH).

• If the research was sponsored, funding for article processing charges was not included in the budget.

• The sentence “Article processing charges were provided in part by the UCF College of Graduate Studies Open Access Publishing Fund” should be included in the acknowledgements.

A short application must be submitted to gradfellowship@ucf.edu to be considered.