The worst of both worlds: Hybrid Open Access | Lisa Matthias | OpenAIRE blog

"A couple weeks ago, the European Commission (EC) announced that starting with their new funding programme, Horizon Europe, they will no longer reimburse publication fees for hybrid Open Access. Previously, the EC had excluded hybrid APCs when they first introduced Open Access funds during the FP7 (Post-Grant) Open Access Pilot, but later covered hybrid Open Access in the following funding programme, Horizon 2020 (2014-2020). Hybrid Open Access describes an publishing model where some articles are made openly available, against the payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC), while other articles remain closed access, and the journal as a whole subscription-based. The first hybrid journals launched with Springer Open Choice and Wiley Online Open in 2004. Two years later, the publishing model was incorporated through Elsevier Open Access, Sage Choice and Taylor & Francis Open Select, and Nature Publishing Group (NPG) Open followed in 2007. Since then, the number of hybrid OA journals has skyrocketed and crossed the 10k mark, the leading 5 publishers owning the majority...."