Find out more
For more information, please email Rebecca Ashworth, Institutional Open Access Consultant.
Recommend
Find out about publishing your article open access, or if you would like to suggest Royal Society Open Access Membership to your institution, you can submit a recommendation.
The Royal Society Open Access Membership programmes actively encourage open access in scholarly communication. Becoming a member grows your institution’s research exposure and allows your authors to publish more content in an open access format, leading to wider dissemination and increased potential for downloads and citations. Our transparent pricing means that you won't be paying twice.
Membership benefits
- Discounts of up to 25% are offered on each article processing charge, making research grants and institutional open access funds stretch further.
- Our open access policies are compliant with a wide range of funders, so you can be safe in the knowledge that your authors will comply with open access mandates.
- The payment process is straight-forward and manageable, with regular reporting to help you keep track of your funds.
- Customised pricing packages are available to suit your institution’s needs.
Standard Open Access Membership
In this programme, authors from member institutions receive a 25% discount on the article processing charge for publishing in any of our journals. Each institution pays an annual fee, which is based on the number of open access articles it published in the Royal Society’s journals during the previous year. This programme allows your institution to show its support for open access publishing, and enables authors to publish at a substantially discounted rate.
Prepay Open Access Membership
Prepay Membership enables an organisation to cover open access article processing charges incurred by its researchers. Prepay members deposit a minimum of £5,000, from which article processing charges are deducted less a 10% discount. The institution authorises each payment before it is processed, meaning that you can choose exactly how the deposit is allocated in line with your institutional requirements. There is no time limit on the funds being spent.
Reports showing details of funds spent and funds remaining are sent to the institution regularly and at any time upon request.
Other Open Access Membership options
We are committed to supporting open access, and offer institutions and authors a high level of flexibility to accommodate individual needs and requirements. Our flexible options include the following.
- Institutions can combine both Royal Society Open Access Membership programmes (Standard and Prepay) in order to benefit from a higher article processing charge discount of 25% on all published open access articles.
- If desired, invoices for article processing charges can be split between the article’s authors and the institution.
- Institutions can select which researchers are eligible for article processing charges to be fully covered by Prepay Membership; for example, those with funding from particular sources.
Please contact us to discuss your individual requirements.
Open Access Members
The Royal Society is a member of OASPA, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association.
Find out more information on how to submit an article and about publishing open access with us.