Is there any good practices for funding APCs for Open Access publications and which model or publishers should be chosen? A case study in the Sector of Sciences and Technologies of UCLouvain (Belgium).

Since November 2019, the Library and Learning center of Sciences and Technologies of the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) manage a budget of 100.000 EUR dedicated to supporting researchers (of our faculties and institutes in sciences and technologies) in the payment of APCs for Open Access publications. Our main aim was not only to encourage researchers to publish in Open Access, but also to encourage them to think about the various Open Access options: the hybrid publisher model, commercial Open Access publishers, free publications by scientific societies, and so on. After three years and an initial assessment of the effective use of this fund and the process of raising awareness among researchers, a small survey was conducted in November 2022 among the researchers in order to assess their knowledge and practice of [Fair] Open Access. Our presentation will outline the conditions for access to this (partial) funding of APCs, the decision-making process and a detailed analysis of the 109 applications submitted on this day (type of publisher, (increasing) costs of APCs, etc.). In parallel, these data will be compared with the survey data: knowledge of the principles of fair open access, level of acceptability of costs for APC, etc. At a time when the big hybrid publishers are rushing to propose, or now impose, their transformative model agreements, the whole question of good practice in funding research publications arises and, ultimately, of the budget that libraries can put (or not) towards supporting [Fair] Open Access