10 April 2019 – The idea of Open Access publishing is not new, with the concept having been first introduced and discussed more than two decades ago. EMBO and EMBO Press support OA, launching its OA journals Molecular Systems Biology in 2005 and Life Science Alliance in 2018; flipping EMBO Molecular Medicine from a subscription model to OA in 2012; and offering OA options in The EMBO Journal and EMBO Reports.
Recent initiatives such as ‘Plan S’ and the German ‘Projekt DEAL‘ aim to accelerate the transition to Open Access publishing. Projekt DEAL is a consortium of 813 universities and research institutes in Germany that looks to achieve so-called ‘publish-and-read’ deals. A recent agreement reached by the group with Wiley includes publication in four EMBO Press journals (The EMBO Journal, EMBO Reports, EMBO Molecular Medicine and Molecular Systems Biology).
What has changed
As a result of this agreement, which initially covers a period of three years, scientist at eligible German institutes or universities now receive free access to all past and new content published in The EMBO Journal and EMBO Reports.
In addition, the Open Access publication fees for research papers and reviews will be paid centrally via authors’ institutions if the responsible corresponding author is employed at an eligible German institute or university. Eligible authors are able to publish free of charge in The EMBO Journal and EMBO Reports from 1 July 2019. For these two journals, the default setting will be Open Access with a CC-BY license, but authors can also choose another form of publication.
The Open Access journals Molecular Systems Biology and EMBO Molecular Medicine are also included in the agreement, with publication charges being reduced by 20% with immediate effect. Publication in these two journals is also compatible with Plan S requirements.
Other national agreements
The EMBO Press journals are also included in a series of other agreements between Wiley and national bodies or institutes:
- Austria: agreement with the Austrian Academic Library Consortium (KEMÖ)
- The Netherlands: agreement with Dutch Universities/UMCs (VSNU)
- Hungary: agreement with the Hungarian Electronic Information Service National Programme
- Norway: agreement with The Norwegian Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research
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This piece was updated on 27 June to include additional detail on the discounted Article Processing Charges for EMBO Molecular Medicine and Molecular Systems Biology an to add the list of links to other national agreements.
