It is critically important to us that all authors are able to publish quality results in our journals, regardless of their funding situation. To this end, we have developed a substantial AAS Publication Support Fund available to authors under our new open access model that launched 1 January 2022.
Authors may request partial or full support toward publication charges for any article submitted to AJ, ApJ, ApJ Supplements, and ApJ Letters. Authors will be able to indicate during the submission process whether they would like to request support from the AAS Publication Support Fund for the publication charges of that article.
Publication support requests from communities/authors with no funding sources will be given priority. These include astronomers in countries with extremely limited support for publication charges, retired researchers, and astronomers whose institutions provide little or no support for research. Other requests for support from the AAS Publication Support Fund will be accommodated to the extent that our budget allows. In general, we expect all authors who are in a position to contribute to publication costs to do so; a request for publication support does not guarantee that one will be granted.
To ensure that the AAS Publication Support Fund is used effectively, we are modifying our peer review system to allow us to gather critical demographic information (like PhD year, availability of grant funding, etc.) from everyone requesting publication support, and we will retain data on all support requests and awards within the peer review system. While funds from the AAS Publication Support Fund are allocated by the Editor in Chief, the AAS Publications Committee will regularly review the criteria and efficacy of the program in order to improve the process in response to community input and productivity. On the financial side, the Editor in Chief will coordinate with the Chief Finance and Operations Officer (CFOO) to ensure we remain within budget parameters. The CFOO will provide quarterly reports to the Board of Trustees anonymously detailing the budget status and distribution from the AAS Publication Support Fund for the past quarter. We plan to adjust our support fund policy, criteria, and funding level over time based on our experience administering the program.
