(1 Nov 2022) The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has committed to making all of its journals open access within the next five years. It is the first chemistry publisher to commit to a 100% open access model and hopes to fund the move in a way that will avoid individual authors having to pay article processing charges (APCs).
Open access journals generally require authors to pay a one-off APC in order to publish their papers. This covers costs associated with managing the peer review process and maintaining the scientific record, and means that anyone can read the journal’s content without having to pay a subscription.
But in announcing its commitment to a fully open access model, the RSC notes that it hopes to negotiate new ‘institutional or funder level’ agreements, where institutions pay a flat rate so that their researchers can publish in RSC journals without paying individual APCs. These deals would take into account regional differences so that institutions in poorer nations would not be expected to pay the same rates as those in richer countries.
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