Can you waive or discount the fees for me?

We are not a charity or funding agency, and we insist that authors exhaust all possible avenues to obtain external funding to cover the publication costs, much as they would try to find funding to go to a conference. If we google an author or co-authors and see that he/she boasts being funded or is travelling to conferences, or if we see an acknowledgment in a submitted paper referring to a grant, we will question why the same envelope of money wasn't used to pay our publication fees. The same applies to all co-authors. For example, if unfunded PhD students publish with a senior author on the same paper, we would need the senior author to justify that no external funding or university open access funds are available to support the publication.

I am a Student or Faculty of the University of California

Great news: A $1000 support is automatically applied and deducted from the APF. A full waiver is also available - just fill in the form at APF Support for Corresponding Authors from the University of California

I have some grant money, but my funding agency (e.g. DFG) has set an APF limit which JMIR exceeds

We heard this concern from DFG-funded authors. DFG caps the APF at EUR 2000 which with the current exchange rate is slightly lower than the highest JMIR APF.

We are willing to accommodate discounts to meet the caps established by funding agencies on a case by case basis, but as that authors first evaluate the strategies listed at I don't have any grant money - how can I publish in JMIR? and in particular remember the following

• evaluate if you can submit/publish your protocol/formative work to JMIR Res Protoc first. In addition to giving you extra visibility and accountability for your research project, subsequent related papers enjoy a 20% discount on the APF (Why should I publish my protocol or grant proposal?) 
• investigate if you can become an institutional member using your grant. For institutional members, the APF is waived, and even when you divide the institutional membership by the number of fee waivers, the effective APF per article is significantly lower than on a pay-as-you-need basis (see also Why should I consider an institutional membership?)
• Build and use your karma credits. For example, peer-reviewing papers and using your karma credits can shave off up to $100 from the APF of your own submissions. You may also still have karma credits from prior submissions (even submitting a paper gives you credits). See Karma Credits - What are they and how to collect them? for details.
• Find a cheaper sister journal or a free JMIR journal (see also Which journals is JMIR Publications currently publishing?) or see if there is a discounted theme issue coming up (What are the forthcoming theme issues?)
• If all fails, apply for a discount, but you will need to provide us with reasons (and proof to us) why the discount strategies suggested above do not work for you.

Waiver/Discount Policy

Having said that, JMIR does have a fee waiver / discount policy (valid for all JMIR journals) which is described at the bottom of our Fee Schedule table and we have a waiver/discount application form as PDF (note: A different form is used for author from the University of California, see APF Support for Corresponding Authors from the University of California).

Note that we waive or discount the APF only in exceptional cases (a discount is more common - please use the same form and indicate how much funds are available) and ALL co-authors need to certify that they have no funding and no institutional funding is available.

We request that you evaluate the potential of a fee waiver/discount before submission, not after acceptance, by filling in the form and contacting us.

If your paper has not yet been submitted, please enclose information on

• the paper you are intending to submit (we need title and abstract)
• which journal it is submitted to (and is publication in a sister journal, including our forthcoming sister journals, an option for you?)
• who funded the research, and why can publication costs not be covered by the funder
• who are the coauthors, and does no coauthor have discretionary funding for publication costs (including open access institutional funding, please google "open access fund [institution name]").

If you filled in the form, please submit it as a support ticket to support@jmir.org (if it is already submitted, include the manuscript #), and also upload it as supplementary file to your manuscript when submitting it (or if it has already been submitted, please add the form as supplementary file).

We do not waive fees for research protocols and proposals, however, JMIR Research Protocols offers an automatic 50% discount ("automatic" means that submission of the waiver/discount form is not required) on protocols or proposals if they are grant-funded and a peer-review report from the funding body is available and attached to the submission (see When is a grant proposal or protocol eligible for the 50% discount on the APF?). If these requirements are not fulfilled (no peer-review reports from funding agencies available), then JMIR Res Protoc will consider applications for a 50% discount in exceptional cases (e.g. student/patient-led projects). Please use the waiver/discount application form mentioned above.

Also, protocols from authors from the University of California can be published free of charge for the author, see APF Support for Corresponding Authors from the University of California.

Thanks again for your interest in JMIR journals.

See also:

• How does the Article Processing Fee (APF/APC) at JMIR compare to other journals/publishers?
• I don't have any grant money - how can I publish in JMIR?
• Which JMIR journals are currently free to publish in?
• When is a grant proposal or protocol eligible for the 50% discount on the APF?
• APF Support for Corresponding Authors from the University of California