EU set to snub hybrid open-access journals

"The EU’s 2021-27 R&D programme will not pay for articles to be published in hybrid open-access journals under proposals published by the European Commission.

Horizon Europe will pay article processing charges only “for purely open-access publishing venues (i.e. not ‘hybrid’ journals)” under Commission proposals published on 7 June. The current programme Horizon 2020 does support hybrid journals. The change would be controversial as it could prevent researchers from publishing in their first-choice locations....

A Commission source told Research Europe that the Commission is dropping its support for hybrid journals in part because they “do not currently appear to support a transition towards full open-access publishing models”. The source added that national funders are better placed to negotiate with publishers on the offsetting of subscription fees in hybrid models....

The Commission’s move will force researchers funded by Horizon Europe to publish either in fully open-access journals or through the green model if they want the programme to foot the bill.

Steven Inchcoombe, chief publishing officer at Springer Nature, said the decision was “likely to decrease open-access publication overall and risk a significant regression in open-access uptake” because hybrid journals “play an important role in aiding the transition to open access”. Springer Nature reported last month that it published about 3,900 articles with UK-based corresponding authors in its hybrid journals in 2017, compared with about 4,450 articles in its fully open-access journals...."