Introduction Not many academic disputes get coverage in The New York Times, inspire hashtags on Twitter, and trigger late-night strategy sessions in research labs from Berkeley to Berlin. Yet in 2019, the University of California (UC) did just that when it told Elsevier—arguably the most powerful scholarly publisher—to take its $10-million-a-year subscription bill and kindly … Read more
Introduction Open access publishing is one of those revolutionary ideas that seems obvious in hindsight. Who wouldn’t want free and unrestricted access to scholarly knowledge, particularly when much of it is publicly funded? Yet, this movement, now synonymous with modern academic progress, has a murky and complex history. The phrase “open access” itself only entered … Read more
Introduction The European academic publishing landscape has undergone seismic shifts in recent years, with open access (OA) reform taking center stage. Plan S is at the forefront of this transformation, a bold initiative launched in 2018 by cOAlition S—an international consortium of national research funders and charitable foundations. Its mission? To make all publicly funded … Read more
Introduction The open access (OA) movement has dramatically shifted the academic publishing landscape over the past two decades. With the rise of digital publishing and a growing demand for equitable access to publicly funded research, two influential models have emerged in global conversations: Diamond Open Access and Plan S. Each represents a different philosophy and … Read more
Introduction Securing Article Processing Charge (APC) funding has become a vital step for researchers and academic institutions looking to publish their work in open access journals. With the growing shift toward more transparent and widely accessible academic outputs, APCs can present a significant financial barrier—especially for early-career researchers or those without institutional backing. In both … Read more