5 April 2022
Annual Reviews announced that over the next 18 months they will make their entire portfolio of 51 academic journals freely available to everyone under a new model called Subscribe to Open. These highly cited journals cover topics across the sciences, including astronomy, environmental science, genomics, marine science, public health, and sociology.
Last year, Annual Reviews published 1,200 articles that synthesized and integrated information from more than 144,000 individual research publications. “Each article is a treasure trove of knowledge that captures the current understanding of a topic and helps map out the future of science,” said Annual Reviews President and Editor-in-Chief Richard Gallagher.
“By making them available to all academics and students, wherever they live and work, and also to a broader audience of policy makers and activists, corporations and workers, doctors and patients, we can contribute to more rapid and inclusive societal progress based on research.” Tracey L. Meares, the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law, a Founding Director of The Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School and Co-Editor of the Annual Review of Criminology said “As a scholar at an elite university, I am lucky to have seamless access to any research journal I would like. But, I am all too aware through my work with policing agencies, prosecutors and other institutional actors on the ground that paywalls prevent those who really need access to high quality research from having access to it. Even staff at the White House cannot always access Annual Reviews! Moving Annual Reviews to open access using Subscribe to Open is critical for good policy.”
Subscribe to Open offers immediate, transparent, and equitable conversion to open access for readers and authors in all disciplines. Under the model, existing institutional customers continue to subscribe to the journals. If support remains sufficient, every new volume will be published open access under a Creative Commons license. If support proves insufficient, the paywall will be retained.
Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Collections at Iowa State University, said “The Subscribe to Open model allows libraries to align their collection spending with their values. It offers equity for authors and for readers. Open models that utilize article processing charges erect barriers in front of authors who are unable to pay. Subscribe to Open elegantly avoids this issue, providing an equitable solution to all.”