Publication Fees

As per the announcement made by the journal’s owner, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), CMAJ Open will no longer be accepting submissions. Read more…

We believe that all research should be freely available. To support this policy, authors of research papers are asked to pay a publication fee upon acceptance of their paper. Whether an author group is able to pay the publication fee does not affect editorial decision-making.

Because CMAJ Open is an open-access journal, the publication fee covers such costs as those spent on editorial and copyediting time, the CMAJ Open website and the manuscript submission website.

By submitting a manuscript to CMAJ Open, authors are agreeing to pay the publication fee upon acceptance, unless specific arrangements have been made in writing with CMAJ Open before submission.

How much is the publication fee?

Authors will be asked to pay a publication fee of $3000 CDN plus applicable sales tax upon acceptance of their paper. There are no colour or page charges.

Taxes

Author groups whose research paper is accepted, and whose corresponding author resides in Canada, must pay taxes (GST/HST) on the above-mentioned fee.

The taxation rate differs per province and is: 5% (Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Yukon), 13% (Ontario), 14.97% (Quebec), 15% (New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island).

Partial or complete fee waivers

CMAJ Open will waive all or part of its publication fees for the following authors:

Authors from lower income countries -- CMAJ Open uses Research4Life's criteria to determine eligibility for publication fee waivers. Authors from Group A are eligible for a 100% fee waiver while authors from Group B are eligible for a 50% fee waiver.

Student authors -- Author groups composed of: a) a majority of students who do not hold a doctoral degree (PhD or MD), and which b) contain a maximum of 2 PhD or MD holders, are eligible for a 25% discount on their publication fee. 

If you fall into one of the above categories and would like to apply for a fee waiver, please email the editorial office before you submit your manuscript. Please include a complete author list including affiliations and completed degrees. Please do not request a fee waiver if you do not meet the above criteria as it will not be approved.

Refund policy

If for any reason (e.g., plagiarism, fraudulent data and other legal issues) during the production process, the publisher decides to not publish an accepted paper, the author will be reimbursed the publication fee.