Changing with the times: our evolving approach to open access
Shaping our Open Access approach amid a complex, evolving open research landscape, supporting authors to best suit their local context
In 2022, the 浪花直播 (RSC) announced our ambition to transition all of our RSC-owned journals to open access (OA) within the next five years. This ambition made us the first chemistry publisher to publicly commit to a fully OA future.
Since then, we embarked on a global programme to engage with our community and to understand the ways in which we could collaboratively build a fully OA future, overcoming local challenges and supporting stakeholders to adapt to open access. Based on the conversations we had across the world and in response to shifts in the global research landscape, we are evolving our OA strategy. Rather than a universal transition to 100% open access by 2028, we are moving toward regionally tailored approaches to OA and models that support diverse pathways to openness, based on local needs, funding landscapes, and infrastructure.
Our original goal to achieve 100% OA by 2028 was firmly aligned with our mission to help chemists to make the world a better place. Open access was, and remains, central to that mission: providing free, unrestricted global access to cutting-edge research accelerates the pace of discovery, enhancing our ability to tackle the most pressing global challenges, from disease to climate change.
Although we are moving away from a single pathway to open 鈥� via a complete portfolio of OA journals - our goal remains to build an inclusive, sustainable OA future, ensuring that all authors, regardless of geography or funding, can take advantage of publishing their work as openly as possible.
You spoke, we listened
Our original goal was ambitious: assuming sufficient support and participation from our global partners, we aimed to transition our portfolio of RSC-owned journals to open access by 2028. In doing so, we pledged to engage closely with our global community to collaboratively evolve the open access landscape towards a future that would work for everyone.
For the past three years, we鈥檝e been traveling around the world to talk to our community 鈥� we鈥檝e run focus groups, workshops, panels, and spoken to a huge range of people. We鈥檝e also continuously kept abreast of broader industry trends. Our goal was to co-create sustainable open access models that would support a fully OA portfolio which we could tailor to different regions and their needs.
The resounding message we heard over and over is that one size cannot fit all: that while some regions are steaming ahead with fully OA, others are embracing their own ways to achieve openness and yet others are not yet ready for fully OA. It became clear that we needed to adapt our vision for openness to account for a landscape that is increasing in complexity and no longer coalescing around a single direction for open research.
Recognizing the diverse needs of our global community
We are now shaping our future open access approach to support authors in ways that suit them best in a local context.
In Europe, where open access has largely become the norm, our conversations have focused on the challenge of building sustainable OA models fit for a fully OA future. While there is widespread support for OA in Europe, concerns have largely shifted to how costs are distributed, and to what they cover. Traditional Article Processing Charge (APC)-based models risk concentrating the financial burden of OA on a few large, research-intensive institutions, giving non-publishing institutions an opportunity to benefit from OA without participating financially. Recognizing this imbalance, we worked closely with the community to explore models that spread costs more equitably across the breadth of institutions that value OA.
We were thrilled to partner with the Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology (TIB) in Germany to - a community-driven alternative to traditional 鈥楻ead & Publish鈥� models. Since the launch of RSC Platinum with the TIB in 2023, we鈥檝e been working with other consortia in Europe to develop similar iterations 鈥� the primary goal of the model being to achieve as much OA as possible for a country within a structure that鈥檚 fair and transparent.
Moving forward, we鈥檒l continue to work closely with our key European stakeholders to develop the next generation of fair and transparent models to support what we hope will become full open access for publications from Europe.
In North America, and particularly the United States, our conversations revealed an open access landscape that is increasingly diverse and complex. Early momentum from policies like the 鈥楴elson Memo鈥� from the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) signalled a strong push toward immediate open access, but readiness among institutions to implement and manage OA agreements is incredibly uneven.
Perhaps because of this, we鈥檝e seen models like Subscribe to Open (S2O) gain traction due to their simplicity and ease of administration. There is a growing demand for easy-to-administer models with more and more publishers piloting S2O initiatives. Alongside this, libraries and institutions are adopting more strategic approaches to OA, developing OA Agreement evaluation frameworks that prioritize fairness, transparency, and sustainability, and moving away from traditional APC-based models.
Meanwhile, the broader research environment in the US is becoming increasingly challenging. Recent federal research funding cuts and suspensions under the current administration have introduced significant financial uncertainty for US universities, leading to hiring freezes, program cuts, and reductions in graduate student intake. Many researchers are facing grant suspensions and job losses, putting the continuity of research projects at risk. In this climate, flexibility and resilience are more important than ever and we remain committed to working closely with our North American partners to co-develop options that support a sustainable, equitable, and inclusive future for open access despite these pressures.
In China, the emphasis is on Open Science more broadly, and our team is involved in a range of related initiatives through both local and national collaborations. While Open Science is clearly a priority, our ongoing engagement indicates that views on open access are nuanced and evolving. Impact and quality remain a key consideration for many researchers when choosing where to publish, though a significant number of Chinese authors still choose to publish in our newer, developing portfolio of Gold OA journals.
We currently have over 50 OA agreements in China and remain committed to working closely with our partners to further support open science and OA initiatives in China. Our goal is to align with local priorities by offering a mix of open and traditional publishing models while maintaining our high standard of quality and support for authors.
In Japan, the OA landscape is undergoing significant change, driven by relatively new national mandates requiring immediate open access to publicly funded research by 2025. Our conversations with institutions and research organizations, including the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), highlighted a strong commitment to aligning with international Open Science movements while addressing local needs for sustainable implementation. Researchers and institutions are also navigating challenges around funding models and balancing compliance with a drive to enhance Japan鈥檚 already high publishing standards. Through continued partnership with key stakeholders in Japan, we look forward to supporting Japan鈥檚 OA ambitions and providing a high-quality publishing venue for Japanese research.
In India, APCs remain a significant barrier for researchers. While open access offers the promise of greater visibility for Indian research, high publishing costs can restrict who is able to publish, creating inequities that run counter to the ideals of the OA movement. Alongside these financial barriers, concerns about the rise of predatory publishing, which has proliferated under the banner of OA, have made researchers increasingly cautious about where, and how they publish. Through our ongoing conversations with institutions and researchers across India, we have heard repeatedly how critical it is to widen not just access to content, but to ensure trustworthy, affordable publishing opportunities that protect research quality and integrity.
Moving forward, we are excited to continue to work with our community and partners in India to overcome negative perceptions of OA and to promote opportunities for Indian researcher to publish OA.
In Africa, our conversations revealed both the vast potential of open Access and the significant challenges. While OA has the power to unlock knowledge across the continent, many researchers are still unaware of fee waiver programmes like Research4Life and remain cautious about journal credibility due to the rise of predatory publishing. At the Pan Africa 浪花直播 Network (PACN) Congress in Nairobi, researchers, librarians, and policymakers emphasized that improving awareness, building trust, and strengthening infrastructure are critical to realising the full benefits of OA.
We were particularly impressed by initiatives like TCC Africa, which equips researchers with the communication skills needed to raise the global profile of African research. Broader discussions at the Fiesole Retreat in Cape Town also reinforced the success of local Diamond OA initiatives, which are locally run and free of financial barriers. Overall, funding and awareness remain the biggest challenges and moving forward, we are committed to collaborating with African institutions and researchers in support of their local ambition for the future of open access in the region.
Beyond Africa and India, our engagement with the wider Commonwealth community through the 3rd Commonwealth 浪花直播 Congress in South Africa highlighted many shared priorities. In our workshop on Open Knowledge Dissemination, researchers and society representatives from across the Caribbean, South Asia, Africa, and the Pacific emphasized the importance of improving awareness of open access concepts, ensuring greater transparency around publishing costs, and strengthening regional cooperation.
There is strong enthusiasm for initiatives that promote community-led, equitable models such as Diamond open access, alongside calls for greater support for early career researchers and those from low- and middle-income countries. Moving forward, we see enormous potential in fostering deeper collaboration across the Commonwealth to build sustainable, inclusive open access pathways that reflect the diverse needs and ambitions of its research communities.
A shifting global landscape
Looking at the landscape more broadly, we see that the global scholarly publishing environment is becoming increasingly complex, with a range of emerging trends challenging the path to a fully open access future. As we heard across the board in global conversations, library budgets are remaining flat or in decline in many regions, while funding for APCs is becoming increasingly limited or unevenly distributed, making it difficult for institutions, particularly in lower-income regions, to fully support OA publishing. These financial pressures are sharpening wider concerns around global equity, as most current OA models risk disadvantaging researchers without access to adequate resources.
At the same time, the proliferation of regional policies - often overlapping or in conflict - has introduced new layers of administrative complexity, creating uncertainty for authors, institutions, and publishers alike. The rapid growth of AI tools is also adding fresh urgency to long-standing questions around licensing, attribution, and the governance of openly accessible research.
In many parts of the world, libraries, funders, and research institutions remain out of step in their readiness and strategic direction, leading to fragmented progress. As these pressures mount, we are seeing a growing sense of caution within the community. Institutions are increasingly hesitant to commit to long-term OA models without clearer, more sustainable pathways forward.
Looking ahead
As the global research landscape continues to evolve, so too must our approach to open access. While our original goal of transitioning all RSC-owned journals to OA by 2028 helped spark valuable dialogue and momentum, the realities of the current global research landscape paired with the additional challenges we uncovered through our extensive community engagement have led us to embrace a more flexible, nuanced path forward. Our commitment remains unchanged: to support a future where chemical science is accessible to all, where authors can publish without barriers, and where the benefits of open research are shared equitably across the globe.
As we continue to work to build sustainable, equitable and regionally tailored models that broaden access to the research we publish, we invite our global community to partner with us. If you are interested in learning more, or collaborating to help shape the future of open access, we welcome you to get in touch!