Subscribe To Open

Subscribe to Open is the new business model of EMS Press for equitable and sustainable Open Access publishing.

EMS Press Open Access

EMS Press has made the decision to transition its portfolio of journal titles to Open Access. In making this decision, it was agreed that the society could not support a model that may present barriers to publication, and as such any model relying on APCs would not be suitable. Through rigorous analysis of the various remaining options available to the Press, we have elected to pursue a Subscribe to Open (S2O) business model. 

Transformative agreements, including Subscribe to Open pioneered by Annual Reviews, emerged as the most promising.  — SPA-OPS Report, 2019

S2O workflow diagram

S2O is a sustainable and equitable model for open access. Libraries continue to subscribe to journals for the coming year, as they always have (with the usual subscriber benefits, such as archive access). At the end of the current year if a journal has achieved the target set by the Press then that journal becomes open access - if not then it remains behind a paywall and only subscriber have access. Where there is a funder requirement for open access EMS Press will publish articles under Green Open Access, ensuring that the article is freely available regardless of the overall journal status.

The only way to guarantee access to any of the Press’s journals is to subscribe, and doing so has the added effect if flipping titles to open access once a threshold is achieved, benefitting the whole mathematics research community.

S2O has clear benefits for all participants in the publishing ecosystem.

For the subject librarian

  • Retain control of budgets and collection;

  • Administratively, subscriptions operate as before but now support OA;

  • Guaranteed access to journal content when subscribing (including full archive), regardless of outcome.

For the researcher

  • No APCs or other financial barriers to publication;

  • Publish where you choose, not where your institution has a deal;

  • Support an equitable system for all researchers based on relevance and quality, not cost.

For the publisher

  • Streamlined administrative processes, reducing internal costs allowing focus to be on content;

  • Support OA in a truly sustainable way;

  • Support global equity in scholarly publishing.

Journals included in EMS Press's 2021 S2O Programme are:

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Additional Resources