Royal Society of Chemistry will make all its journals open access

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.

Traditionally publishers of scientific journals have relied on subscription fees 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.

For example, the Plan S movement in Europe has campaigned for funders to ensure the researchers they support publish their results in open access journals. This has led to the European Research Council and UKRI requiring grantees to publish their work in open access journals. Meanwhile in the US, all government-funded research will need to be published open access from 2026. These measures have seen a growing number of journals move towards open access models.