Research4Life
Research4Life is a public-private partnership providing institutions in lower and middle-income countries with access to academic content. Its country classification into Group A and Group B has become the basis several publishers use to decide who gets an APC waiver — a secondary use, separate from the access programmes themselves.
Reviewed 1 August 2026
In practice
How the groups are set
Eligibility rests on five factors: total gross national income, GNI per capita, the UN least developed countries list, the human development index, and healthy life expectancy from the World Health Organization.
Access and fees are different things
Research4Life exists to give institutions access to read the literature. Waivers on publication charges are a separate decision made by each publisher, which may or may not follow the Research4Life lists.
Who follows the guidelines
Twelve publishers have expressed support for the Research4Life APC waiver guidelines: Elsevier, Springer Nature, Hindawi, Wiley, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, IOP Publishing, Canadian Science Publishing, Sage, Taylor & Francis, the Royal Society and SPIE Press. The guidelines were drawn up by a taskforce of publisher partners together with DOAJ, STM and Yale University.
Common misconceptions
Support for the guidelines is not the same as using the country lists. Several signatories set eligibility from World Bank income classes instead.
Two publishers both citing Research4Life can still publish different country lists — and do.