(20 Jun 2023) Two-thirds of the more than 2300 scientific journals participating in a program designed to flip them to open access (OA) failed to meet prescribed targets for progress in 2022. As a result, the Coalition S group of research funders behind the initiative announced today that it will remove these journals from the program at the end of the year. The funders will no longer pay the fees these journals charge authors for OA publication, although scholars may still publish OA articles in these titles if they pay using other funding sources.
Although most publishers say they support a transition to OA from the existing subscription-based model, the decision by Coalition S reflects that progress has been slower than these research funders, and many scientists, would like. “That so many titles were unable to meet their OA growth targets suggests that for some publishers, the transition to full and immediate open access is unlikely to happen in a reasonable time frame,” says Robert Kiley, Coalition S’s head of strategy.
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