Paying for Open Access Publication and Data Sharing

For publication and open access costs that directly apply to a sponsored award, you may include these as direct charges to the award under the following conditions:

1. The costs must meet the standards of the Uniform Guidance section § 200.461 below. In summary, they must be identifiable with a particular cost objective, the publication’s report work is supported by the award, and the costs are levied impartially on all items published by the journal.

Publication and printing costs.

1. 1. Publication costs for electronic and print media, including distribution, promotion, and general handling, are allowable. These costs should be allocated as indirect costs to all benefiting activities of the recipient or subrecipient if they are not identifiable with a particular cost objective.
   2. Page charges, article processing charges (APCs), or similar fees such as open access fees for professional journal publications and other peer-reviewed publications resulting from a Federal award are allowable where:
      1. The publications report work supported by the Federal Government; and
      2. The charges are levied impartially on all items published by the journal, whether or not under a Federal award.
      3. The recipient or subrecipient may charge the Federal award during closeout for the costs of publication or sharing of research results if the costs were not incurred during the period of performance of the Federal award. These costs must be charged to the final budget period of the award unless otherwise specified by the Federal agency.
2. Budget requests must not include infrastructure costs that included in institutional overhead (F&A/indirect costs).
3. The costs must not already be a part of library costs.
4. The costs must be contained in the approved budget of the sponsored award.
5. Budget requests can include preserving and sharing scientific data for a time period beyond the period of performance, as long as the cost for the entire period is paid prior to the closeout of the award (for timing, see #6).

Preserving and sharing data through established repositories, such as data deposit fees necessary for making data available and accessible. For example, if a Data Management and Sharing Plan proposes preserving and sharing scientific data for 10 years in an established repository with a deposition fee, the cost for the entire 10-year period must be paid prior to the end of the <closeout> period. If the Plan proposes deposition to multiple repositories, costs associated with each proposed repository may be included.

If all above conditions are met and costs are expensed after the period of performance, expenses may occur up to 90 days after the period of performance (or 30 days less than the closeout period, whichever is less) in consultation with the Grant Accountant assigned to the sponsored award.