Editor’s note: Today’s post is by Emma Wood, Scholarly Communication Librarian, University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth.

In July 2025, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposed to implement caps on the amount of grant funding that can be allotted to article processing charges (APCs), the fees some publishers levy to license articles as freely accessible. NIH requested feedback from the research community on their proposal, to be submitted by September 2025. NIH put forth an effective date of January 1, 2026 in the proposal, with NIH’s director statement having a more ambiguous start date of FY 2026.

The proposal added to the turbulence and uncertainty of the academic and scientific community surrounding open access (OA) publishing. While researchers are already navigating new mandates about making research openly available without embargo, this proposal from one of the largest federal funders suggests that meeting OA requirements may come with some unexpected financial restraints.

As of the writing of this article, an APC cap policy is still in the consideration phase, and limits have not yet been officially established. No doubt, whether you are a librarian, publisher, or researcher, you have heard rumblings that something controversial has happened with NIH and APC caps. So while we wait for a decision, here is a summary of what transpired thus far, and thoughts on what may come next.

APCs are like a dreaded restaurant check that has been placed on the table, and none of the diners are eager to reach for it. In fact, some of us never wanted to come to this restaurant in the first place. Every stakeholder is seated at the table, but it is the usual suspects who pick up the tab. The primary investigator(s), the university’s research office or administration, the research funder, or the library are the first to extend the offer — or at least they come through after some cajoling. Publishers consistently argue that they are, in fact, the restaurant. They provide the venue, where they plate and serve up the food.

The NIH proposal presented five options:

1. Option 1: disallow all publication costs
2. Option 2: set a limit on allowable costs per publication
3. Option 3: set a limit on allowable costs per publication and allow a higher amount to be paid when peer reviewers are compensated
4. Option 4: set a limit on the total amount of an award that can be spent on publication costs
5. Option 5: set a limit on both the per-publication cost and the total amount of an award that can be spent on publications

The common point of all five options is that they restrict publication allowance one way or another. For the researcher, this means either making a different journal choice or finding supplemental cash from their own pocket, institution, or extraneous funder. Making cost a key decision in selecting a venue for publication seems like a sad day in the fight for prioritizing quality research. As one respondent wrote, “None of the 5 Options presented about implementing a cap on allowable publication costs are reasonable or acceptable.”

It is unsettling that federally funded research must be made publicly available, and yet the paywalls keep shifting. The new gatekeeping is enforced upon those paying to meet the OA requirement, rather than those seeking to read the publications.

Researchers responded to the NIH by submitting their opposition or concurrence, and some posted their responses on their own blogs or webpages for the public to read. Outside of the solicited response, some wrote blogs and opinion pieces on the controversial proposal, such as Inside Higher Ed’s report on those in opposition and a post by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

NIH compiled and published 914 responses, and many of them were critical of all or most of the options, but there were some that found an option or two amenable. At face value, all options remove a benefit currently enjoyed, but a few respondents looked toward the long game and believe that caps will lead to positive changes overall. For example, one feedback entry said, “I think the Open Access fees for some journals have become excessive, and this might help provide some pressure on the publishers to set more reasonable costs.”

The publishers themselves don’t seem to think so. Publishers who weighed in on the draft policy seemed to go into defense mode. For example, Elsevier’s lengthy reply starts on page 1197 and defends the importance of competition and Elsevier’s substantial investments to ensure quality and rigor. On page 1168, Springer Nature expresses its discontent with the policies and suggests that “price controls rarely work.” PLOS starts its opinion on page 1175 and says a “better alternative would be to fund institutions and libraries to secure open access publishing services.” However, it is well known that the large commercial publishers have seen steadily rising profit margins.

Some respondents stated that the caps could undermine the goal of making federally funded research open, even though NIH claims the purpose of their proposed changes is to avoid researchers paying “unreasonably high fees from their NIH awards that lessen the funds available for conducting research and which burden American taxpayers.” In this post from the May 2025 acceleration point of OA for the NIH, The Scholarly Kitchen Chefs convey well that the impetus is a reduction in federal funding overall, and a rapid need to recalibrate services and redistribute even more limited resources. There are noble reasons to pursue open science, but the current haste stems from dropped government support despite a federal directive to make OA happen.

The NIH proposal responses are rife with frustration beyond the proposal at hand. They reveal concerns about fraud and failures in scientific research.  One response says, “Nearly everything about the journal publishing system we have today is bad for science.” Another states, “Don’t insult our intelligence and try to gaslight us about some bullshit about ‘maximizing the use of taxpayer funds to support research’. If you really want to maximize the use of taxpayer funds to support research, stop cutting funding for essential and valuable research aimed at improving the health of US taxpayers and actually increase funding for NIH-supported research.” Yet another writes, “All costs paid to profit publishers must be immediately abolished. Elsevier and others must not make money off the work of investigators and government funds.”

One response suggests looking deeper into publisher policies and practices instead of the fees they charge: “Rather than capping APCs arbitrarily, NIH should consider whether a journal adopts demonstrable best practices — such as open peer review, data and code sharing policies, fraud detection tools, and methodological rigor standards — as criteria for allowing higher publication costs. These investments serve scientific integrity and transparency. A journal’s profit model and editorial practices are more relevant to justifying cost than the sticker price alone.”

A key aspect of the predicament is that new developments in publishing have created contradictory policies. Research must be published open access and without an embargo, yet NIH is essentially proposing that it will reduce funds available to researchers for Open Access publishing. Libraries once paid for subscription read access and are now being asked to pay for subscription publish access. The funds continue to be sought in a circular shuffle or game of hot potato. The simple premise is continuously hidden in the obfuscation of complicated policies and contracts.

Conclusion

The conversation really being had is an extension of the one that has gone back and forth for years — who should pay for the cost of OA publishing?

There is precedent for NIH policies under consideration to be reversed. One example is a previously abandoned NIH policy that created a “grant support index” and would cap grants to big labs while establishing support for younger scientists. Similar to the issue at hand of properly distributing funds, NIH said that the policy would ensure “that the funds we are given are producing the best results from our remarkable scientific workforce.” The policy was retracted within a month due to the uproar amongst scientists.

So for now we are all seated at the table waiting to see whether someone will reach for the check – some of us doing calculations and preparing for how the bill might be split. NIH might settle on one of the five options they presented based on the feedback, develop a new or amended policy based on the feedback, or potentially retract the concept. Any resolution is worth paying attention to because it has the potential to influence the APC landscape.