Quantify the impact of APC waivers and Research4Life on Ukrainian Gold OA output

Determine the extent to which emergency Article Processing Charge waiver policies and the Research4Life access and discount programs have translated into increased publication outputs by authors affiliated with Ukrainian institutions in fully Gold Open Access journals.

Background

Following the 2022 escalation of the war in Ukraine, major publishers introduced extraordinary APC waiver policies and other support measures intended to mitigate financial barriers for Ukrainian researchers. Research4Life also provides access and discounts relevant to authors in low- and middle-income contexts.

The paper notes that direct evidence of waiver use is not captured in bibliometric metadata, and therefore the causal contribution of these measures to observed publication increases cannot be directly inferred. This motivates a focused effort to quantify the actual effect of these policies on publication outcomes.