(6 Aug 2025) The Royal Society has agreed plans that would make its journals fully open access in 2026 by adopting the ‘Subscribe to Open’ model.
Under plans agreed in July 2025, libraries subscribed to Royal Society journals will now be asked to support Subscribe to Open in 2026 through their subscriptions. If sufficient libraries continue their subscriptions, the journals will be converted to open access for the year.
The ambitious plan would make research papers published in its eight world-class subscription journals; including the world’s oldest peer-reviewed journals, Philosophical Transactions A and B, freely available online and remove fees for authors to publish in them.
Subscribe to Open is a cost-effective, high-impact and equitable way for publishers to transition to open access. The agreement works by allowing publishers to convert journals from subscriptions to open access, one year at a time.
This would mean the journals become free to read and publish in for any author or reader, not just those associated with a subscribed library.
Under the current hybrid model authors can choose to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs) to make their article open access and available to read for free. With Subscribe to Open, these charges would disappear.
The Royal Society will repeat the offer in subsequent years while continuing to work with libraries, institutions and consortia to establish Read and Publish agreements which provide a sustainable model of open access in the longer term.
The press release in full is here.
