Open access strategy: De Gruyter expands Subscribe to Open program to accelerate OA transformation | De Gruyter

"Academic publisher De Gruyter is implementing the Subscribe to Open (S2O) model at scale to transform its journal portfolio to Open Access over the next 5 years. De Gruyter will gradually transfer about 85% of its currently 320 subscription journals to free online access via Subscribe to Open in close collaboration with journal editors and societies. De Gruyter is the first major academic publisher to use Subscribe to Open as its central open access transformation model.

Currently, De Gruyter offers 16 journals as open access via Subscribe to Open. Another five will follow in 2024, and the publisher plans to transfer around 40 journals to open access by 2025. By 2028 around 270 De Gruyter journals are planned to be available as open access titles via Subscribe to Open. In the pilot phase, De Gruyter has had a positive experience with Subscribe to Open as a sustainable transformation model, especially for humanities journals. The participation of subscribing institutions has been high, and responses have been positive.

Compared to other models, Subscribe to Open offers advantages for all stakeholders in the publication system. Authors can publish their articles in established journals on an open access basis at no additional cost. Libraries retain guaranteed access to journals through their subscription, while enabling the open access transformation of those journals without additional administrative effort or cost. Booksellers continue to organize journal purchases for their customers in the usual way.

In addition, unlike the APC model, which is widely established in the sciences, Subscribe to Open is suited to transforming all journal types in all disciplines, including in the humanities and social sciences (HSS). For De Gruyter's journal portfolio, which is strongly focused on the humanities, Subscribe to Open is therefore a logical choice to function as the main way to open journals...."