Subscribe To Open

Subscribe to Open is the business model selected by EMS Press to pursue a programme of fair and sustainable open access publishing.

EMS Press Open Access

Open Mathematics

Visit our new community page, in collaboration with EDP Sciences and MSP - Open Mathematics Through Subscribe to Open.

2025 Programme Results

We are pleased to announce that we have successfully opened all 22 of our 2025 Subscribe To Open (S2O) journals programme; further details can be found here. Our 2026 round will be announced in May 2025, visit the info pages for current subscription rates and package offers.

Overview

In 2019 EMS Press 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 article processing charges (APCs) would not be suitable. Through rigorous analysis of the various remaining options available to the Press, we elected to pursue an S2O business model. 

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

Subscribe To Open diagram (vertical)

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 full subscription benefits, such as access to archive and online-first articles. At the beginning of the new subscription year if a journal has met its sustainability threshold, defined by the Press as the amount needed to support all journal operations, then that journal becomes open access for all issues published in that subscription year. If not, it remains behind a paywall and only subscribers 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. Doing so has the added advantage of helping titles to achieve open access once its sustainability threshold is achieved, benefitting the whole mathematics research community.

Open access content provided through our Subscribe To Open programme is done so under the CC-BY 4.0 license. Please view our Terms of Digital Access for our repository policy.

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

For the library

  • Retain control of budgets and collection;

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

  • Guaranteed access to journal content when subscribing (including online-first and full archive), regardless of outcome;

  • Exclusive access to online first articles for all subscribed journals.

For the researcher

  • No APCs or other financial barriers to publication;

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

  • Comply with funder requirements using immediate Green OA;

  • 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.

All of our journals are now enrolled in the open access programme. To find out the status of a specific publication, please visit our Journal pages.

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Additional Resources