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National academy asks libraries to help transition from subscriptions by supporting ‘subscribe to open’ model
The Royal Society has announced plans to make all its journals open access from January 2026 by adopting the ‘subscribe to open’ (S2O) publishing model.
On 6 August, the UK’s national science academy said it would ask libraries that already subscribe to its journals to support the new model, under which subscription journals are converted to being fully open access for a year at a time, as long as enough libraries maintain their subscriptions.
The S2O model would apply to the eight subscription journals in the Society’s portfolio—including the world’s oldest peer-reviewed journals, Philosophical Transactions A and B—which would become free to read and publish in for any author or reader.
The move would benefit readers and authors from institutions beyond just those whose libraries have a subscription.
The Society’s remaining two journals—Open Biology and Royal Society Open Science—will remain ‘gold’ open access, meaning authors must pay article-processing charges (APCs) to publish in them.
‘Exciting opportunity’
Rod Cookson, publishing director at the Royal Society, said it was “an exciting opportunity to move our journals to open access as early as next year”, and that the S2O model “will help us transition more quickly and equitably”.
David Prosser, executive director of Research Libraries UK, said that “over the last 20 years, the Royal Society has been one of the publishers most engaged with open access and has always been willing to experiment with innovative models to widen the dissemination of research in a sustainable manner”.
“I am sure that many members of RLUK will want to support the Royal Society by continuing to subscribe to their journals to ensure content is made open,” Prosser said.
The S2O model has begun to gain traction in the publishing world. Big five publisher Taylor & Francis also began a pilot project in October 2024 using the model, sparking hopes that a wave of publishers could look to eradicate APCs.
Repeated offer
Mark Walport, vice-president and chair of the Royal Society’s publishing board, said the national academy “has a long history of transformative scientific publishing”.
“This proposal is a natural next step which, along with the Society’s ongoing review on the future of scientific publishing, continues the tradition of innovation it has brought to scholarly communication since launching the world’s first scientific journal in 1665,” Walport said.
The Society said it would repeat the S2O offer in future years while it works towards establishing transformative ‘read and publish’ agreements with more institutions, which it said “provide a sustainable model of open access in the longer term”.