APC policy for The Practical Medicine, including our 2026 founding year waiver and planned pricing structure for subsequent years.
The Practical Medicine is a fully Gold Open Access journal. All published articles are immediately and freely accessible to readers worldwide under the CC BY 4.0 licence. To sustain open access publishing without charging readers, the journal operates an article processing charge (APC) model, in which a fee is payable by authors (or their institutions or funders) upon acceptance of a manuscript.
No APC is charged at submission. Charges are only invoiced after a manuscript has been accepted for publication following peer review.
All article processing charges are fully waived for manuscripts accepted during the journal's inaugural year (2026). Authors whose manuscripts are accepted in 2026 will pay nothing to publish, regardless of their country of affiliation, funding source, or article type. This is our commitment to researchers who place their trust in a new journal.
Standard APC rates for manuscripts accepted from 2027 onwards have not yet been finalised. Rates will be confirmed and publicly announced in advance of implementation, no later than the end of 2026.
The journal intends to maintain income-based discount and waiver tiers for authors from middle-income and low-income countries, consistent with World Bank income group designations and WHO HINARI eligibility criteria. Full details will be published when rates are confirmed.
Authors submitting in 2026 are not affected by future APC changes. The founding year waiver applies in full regardless of when a 2026-accepted article is published.
For advance notice of APC rates when they are announced, authors may contact weopenaccess@gmail.com.
The journal is committed to ensuring that financial constraints do not prevent publication of meritorious research. Discretionary hardship waivers may be available for authors who can demonstrate genuine financial need. Waiver applications:
The article processing charge covers:
Typesetting: Following acceptance, authors are required to format their manuscript according to the journal's published template, which is provided at no charge. Detailed formatting instructions are available in the Author Guidelines.
DOI registration: The journal intends to register DOIs for all published articles through CrossRef. DOI registration is planned to commence within the first year of publication. Articles published prior to DOI registration will be assigned DOIs retrospectively once registration is in place.
APC invoices are issued to the corresponding author by email following acceptance. Payment instructions will be provided at that time. Institutional invoicing and purchase order arrangements are available on request.
If your institution or funder will be paying the APC directly, please notify the editorial office at the time of acceptance so that invoice details can be arranged accordingly.
For all APC-related enquiries, including waiver applications and invoicing, please contact weopenaccess@gmail.com.