Institute of Physics and UMass Amherst Libraries Announce Agreement for Fee-Free Open Access Publishing and Reading

The UMass Amherst Libraries have signed an agreement with the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP) that provides UMass Amherst readers with access and corresponding authors with fee-free open access publication in all IOPP’s journals. IOPP is a society-owned publisher of approximately 100 multidisciplinary journals.  

Between 2020-2024, UMass Amherst authors published 126 articles with IOPP, 26 of which were with a campus corresponding author. This agreement, covering 2025-2027, significantly expands the options available to campus authors to publish open access with publication charges covered by the Libraries.  

Peiyao Zhao, PhD student in Chemical Engineering, and Jimi Oke, Assistant Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering, recently published the article, “Typology of US metropolitan areas illuminates per–capita mobile greenhouse gas emissions impacts and informs mitigation strategies,” in Environmental Research Letters with the IOPP-Libraries agreement. “The process was fast and stress-free. We are both incredibly grateful for this agreement. For our environmental and climate-related work, IOPScience journals have always been a sought-after high-quality venue,” Zao and Oke say. “The new agreement means we can continue to disseminate our work more broadly without worrying about the open-access cost. We are excited to publish more papers in IOPScience journals and thrilled that UMass scholars now have access to this benefit, which will also have a ripple effect on the visibility of the amazing work conducted on our campus.” 

IOPP’s open access articles typically receive 70% higher downloads and 15% higher citations when compared with non-open access articles. Equally important, authors retain their copyright and comply with any funding requirements. The IOPP-Libraries agreement is one of several agreements that offers low or no-cost open access publication to UMass Amherst corresponding authors. 

For more information about how to publish open access under the IOPP or any other publisher agreement, contact Christine Turner, Scholarly Communication Librarian, cturner@umass.edu.