Article Processing Charges

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BCPHR — Article Processing Charges
Stage 3: Submit Your Work

Article Processing Charges

Transparent fees that sustain open-access publishing. No fee buys a faster decision or different review.

ISSN 3068-8558 DOI 10.54111 Open Access · CC BY Updated April 2026

Article Processing Charges (APCs) sustain BCPHR as an open-access nonprofit journal. APCs do not influence peer review outcomes, acceptance decisions, or reviewer selection.

The Fees

Current Fee Schedule

All amounts in U.S. dollars. Fees are paid through Scholastica at the corresponding stage of submission.

$30

Submission and Reading Fee

Charged at submission. Nonrefundable, regardless of editorial outcome.

$675

Article APC (research, review, commentary, atypical)

Charged upon acceptance for publication. Effective February 1, 2026. Includes one round of revise and resubmit.

$250

Blog APC

Charged upon editorial acceptance. Blogs are reviewed by editors but do not undergo peer review.

$20

Corrected Manuscript Upload

Per upload after submission. Use of BCPHR templates is strongly recommended to avoid corrections.

$100

Additional Revise and Resubmit Round

Per round after the first. The first round of revise and resubmit is included in the article APC.

$200

Expedite Withdrawal Fine and Unacknowledged Acceptance Fee

Charged if an author withdraws during expedited review or fails to acknowledge an acceptance within the editor-in-chief's stated window.

What APCs Cover

Where Your Fee Goes

BCPHR is published by the Boston Congress of Public Health, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The Journal receives no institutional subsidy. APCs cover the actual costs of running an open-access journal.

What APCs Pay For

  • Open-access hosting and bandwidth
  • DOI registration with CrossRef
  • Copyediting and typesetting
  • Indexing fees (JSTOR, future PMC, Scopus, Web of Science)
  • Long-term archiving
  • Editorial infrastructure (Scholastica, peer review management)
  • Editor and reviewer support

What APCs Do Not Buy

  • Acceptance decisions or peer review outcomes
  • Different or accelerated review standards
  • Editorial favor or special handling
  • Selection of specific reviewers
  • Influence over editor-in-chief decisions
  • Indexing outcomes

Decoupling Fees from Review Outcomes

BCPHR follows COPE and Plan S principles on fee transparency. Peer reviewers are blinded to APC status. The same acceptance criteria, the same reviewer pool, and the same editor-in-chief approval apply to every manuscript regardless of fee circumstances.

Fee Waivers

Waivers Not Currently Available

No Fee Waivers at This Time

BCPHR is not able to provide fee waivers or scholarships for publication at this time. The submission fee, article APC, and special charges apply to all submissions regardless of author affiliation, funding status, or country of origin. BCPHR keeps its APC well below the median for open-access public health journals to maximize accessibility within the constraints of the journal's nonprofit budget.

Withdrawal and Refunds

Refund and Withdrawal Policy

Important Policies

Submission fees are nonrefundable once a manuscript is submitted. Withdrawal during peer review incurs a fee. Withdrawal during expedited review incurs a $200 fine and may result in notification of the author's home institution. Acceptance must be acknowledged within the editor-in-chief's stated window or a $200 unacknowledged acceptance fee applies.

Relationship to Expedited Review

Expedited Review Is Faster, Not Different

BCPHR reviews articles on an expedited timeline during four annual windows: January and February, April and May, September and October, and December. Expedited review delivers a decision within two weeks of submission. The remaining months (March, June, July, August, November) are off months.

Expedited review is a faster timeline, not a different review standard. The same peer reviewers, the same acceptance criteria, the same editor-in-chief approval, and the same publication ethics apply during expedite windows as during standard review. Expedite status reflects scheduling and editorial capacity, not preferential treatment in exchange for fees.

OPEN ACCESS · CC BY

Authors retain rights to their work. All BCPHR manuscripts are freely available without charge. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to full texts without prior permission from the publisher or author.

BCPHR Aligns with the Following International Publishing Standards. (Click to Open)
What is PIE-J? PIE-J stands for Presentation & Identification of E-Journals, a National Information Standards Organization Recommended Practice (NISO RP-16-2013). It defines how online journals should present title history, ISSN, publication dates, and edition numbering so that librarians, indexing services, and citation databases can unambiguously identify and cite content. BCPHR follows PIE-J for its edition-to-year crosswalk and article-level identifier consistency, as recommended by PubMed Central.