Waiver Eligibility

The Pakistan Journal of Clinical Research (PJCR) is committed to fostering equitable global access to high-quality scientific literature and ensuring that financial constraints never act as a barrier to the dissemination of valid biomedical research. To support researchers operating within resource-limited environments, the journal provides a comprehensive Article Processing Charge (APC) waiver program. This program is structured in strict alignment with international open-access standards, ensuring that editorial evaluations and peer-review processes remain completely insulated from fee management, remaining solely merit-based and independent of an author's financial status.

The journal determines geographical waiver eligibility by strictly following the official, updated World Bank economies classifications. Corresponding authors operating out of economies designated as Low-Income Countries are automatically eligible to receive a full one-hundred percent waiver of all publishing fees. Corresponding authors affiliated with institutions located in Lower-Middle-Income Countries-including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Nigeria-are fully eligible to apply for a partial institutional waiver ranging from an automatic fifty percent reduction up to a full waiver, evaluated based on available volume funding provisions. The baseline country income groupings are verified dynamically via the official World Bank Data Help Desk at https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups to ensure absolute compliance with global economic metrics.

To apply for financial relief, authors must explicitly request the APC waiver within their formal cover letter at the exact time of initial manuscript submission through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) portal. The request must be accompanied by an official, signed financial hardship statement or budgetary declaration issued by the author's primary institutional department or research supervisor. The PJCR Editorial Board evaluates all fee mitigation requests systematically on a case-by-case basis and issues a binding administrative decision within two weeks of receipt. All inquiries regarding fee structures, institutional discount agreements, or specific waiver criteria must be directed exclusively to the PJCR Editorial Office at editor@pjcr.com