Royal Society of Chemistry will make all its journals open access | News | Chemistry World

"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).

Traditionally publishers of scientific journals have relied on subscription fees to journals to cover the cost of their activities. But in recent years there has been a growing push for scientific knowledge to be shared freely, regardless of readers’ ability to pay....

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.

The RSC publishes 44 journals across the chemical sciences, with most still operating a subscription model."