Beginning in October 2012, the UC Davis campus is launching a pilot open access fund. The fund is intended to subsidize reasonable open access publishing charges for researchers when funds are otherwise unavailable. Eligible charges include article processing fees for fully open access journals.

UC Davis Academic Senate, Academic Federation members, faculty, post-docs, residents, fellows, and graduate students are eligible to apply for funds. The fund will pay up to $1000 per article in a fully open access journal and has a cap of one article per author per year. The program is a pilot project and for this reason, funding will be limited.

The California Digital Library and UC Davis University Library are providing the funds in order to support UCD authors interested in reshaping models of scholarly publishing. The University Library will track how the funds are spent, and the success and sustainability of the pilot will be evaluated. The chief goals of the program include fostering greater dissemination of the work of University of California, Davis scholars and encouraging author control of copyright.

Authors can apply for funds using the online application form.