Royal Society trials ’open access’ journal service

The Royal Society has launched a trial of an open access journal service, which will allow people to read new scientific papers free of charge immediately after they are published on the web.

The service offers authors the opportunity to pay a fee to have their paper made freely available on the web immediately if it is accepted for publication by any Royal Society journal.

Currently, all papers appearing in Royal Society journals can be accessed free of charge on the Society's website 12 months after the publication date. Subscribers to each journal have access to papers immediately after they are published. Scientists in a number of developing countries can access all papers immediately after publication in Royal Society journals for a nominal fee under the Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERI) operated by the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP).

The new open access' journal service, called EXiS Open Choice', is being tested by the Royal Society to see if it provides a viable way of sustaining the costs of peer review and other aspects of journal production. Authors who choose to pay to make their papers immediately available on the web will be charged a full cost of £300 per A4 page, although the Society will initially be offering a discounted rate of £225 per A4 page to encourage authors to use the service.

Professor Martin Taylor, Vice-President of the Royal Society, said: "The Royal Society remains committed to promoting the exchange of knowledge between researchers and exploring better ways of achieving this through new technology.

Taylor added: "There is still a lack of evidence about how open access' journals can be sustained in the long-run and we hope that this trial will help the Royal Society and researchers, as both authors and readers, to investigate one of the options."