Open Access Membership
Royal Society Open Access Membership allows researchers at your institution to publish in the Royal Society's gold open access journals with a 25% discount on article processing charges (APCs). Our eight subscription journals are now under Subscribe to Open for 2026, meaning they are free to access and there are no APCs on those eight journals for 2026. A list of institutions with Open Access Membership can be found below.
Our Open Access Membership scheme helps institutions to support researchers who are mandated to publish their research using the open access model. We offer a customised approach to each membership and a commitment to transparent pricing. We will continue to offer this option alongside our Read & Publish and Subscribe to Open agreements.
The payment process is straightforward and manageable with reporting to help you keep track of your funds. Paying authors at Open Access Membership institutions will receive up to 25% discount on payable APCs, making research grants and institutional open access funds stretch further. You’ll receive detailed reports on who from your institution is publishing with us. We’re committed to helping institutions publish as much as they can.
Each member institution pays an annual fee based on the number of open access articles it published in the Royal Society’s gold open access journals during the previous year. Authors affiliated to member institutions then receive a 25% discount on the article processing charge for publishing in the Royal Society’s gold open access journals. This allows your institution to support open access publishing, and enables authors to publish at a substantially discounted rate.
We are committed to supporting open access, and offer institutions and authors a high level of flexibility to accommodate individual needs and requirements.
For any queries regarding Open Access Membership, please email our team at oam@royalsociety.org.
Open access members
A list of institutions with Open Access Membership can be found in the table. Check your institutional link for your eligibility criteria.
Open Access Membership for authors
Authors at institutions with OA Membership receive a 25% discount on OA publication.
Read & Publish for librarians
Purchase both content and OA publishing with one simple yearly fee.
Contact journal representatives
Find your local sales representative for Royal Society scientific journal subscriptions