cOAlition S recognises RSC journals as “Transformative Journals”
All of our 31 fully-owned Royal Society of Chemistry hybrid journals are now approved as “Transformative Journals” with cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations.
This is the first step in our ambition to convert these journals to 100% Open Access within five years, as announced in our recent commitment.
Royal Society of Chemistry Head of Journals, Dr Jamie Humphrey, said: “I am excited that all fully RSC-owned hybrid journals are now recognised by cOAlition S. This is an important stepping-stone as we aim for a future in which Open Access publication makes authors’ work accessible on a global scale.
“Transformative journal status for these publications moves us closer to achieving this aim, provides our global author community with Open Access mandates and even greater choice for the publication of their research articles.”
Robert Kiley, Head of Strategy at cOAlition S, commented: “We applaud the efforts of the Royal Society of Chemistry to accelerate the transition to OA by registering its portfolio of hybrid titles as Transformative Journals (TJs) for the final two years of the TJ programme. Post 2024, financial support from cOAlition S funders will focus on fully OA publishing models.”
Our goal is for the majority of our author community around the world to be covered by institutional or funder level deals, an ambition that involves international partnerships with institutions, corporations and funders. We are making the commitment to engage with these partners and communities to evolve the open access landscape towards a model where the author does not pay article processing charges.
This means we are providing members of our community additional routes for compliance with any funder OA mandates, supporting them to share their research in an open way.
What is transformative status for journals?
A Transformative Journal is a hybrid journal that is actively committed to transitioning to a fully Open Access journal.
A Transformative Journal must:
- increase the share of Open Access content year on year.
- achieve an absolute growth in open access articles of 5% per year, or a relative growth of 15% year-on-year (whichever is more challenging for the journal)
- offset subscription income from payments for publishing services (to avoid double payments, known as ‘double dipping’)
- commit to flip to full Open Access as soon as possible, and in any event once 75% of the research content is published open access.
A world that works for everyone
It’s our mission to help you make the world a better place. Open access is crucial to achieving this. We believe that it is the key to building a fairer, more equitable society. One where everyone can access and benefit from discoveries – including researchers, funders, policymakers and the general public.
What could you achieve in a world that is open to all? It’s time to find out.