This article, titled ‘Left in the Cold: The Failure of APC Waiver Programs to Provide Author Equity’, examines the effectiveness of Article Processing Charge (APC) waivers in promoting equity in open access publishing.

Three authors tackle the topic from different angles. Romy Beard, Publishing Consultant with Romy Beard Consultancy, and former EIFL Licensing Programme Manager, discusses waivers from the perspective of developing countries, citing research conducted by EIFL (2021); Sara Rouhi, Director of Strategic Partnerships at PLOS, addresses the topic from the perspective of publishers and publishing business models, and Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Collections at Iowa State University Library, takes an institutional perspective, focusing on Iowa State University’s open access strategy, which utilizes APC-based and non-APC–based models.