Supporting communities through society publishing

At the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS), we have spent a lot of time over the last few years grappling with the best way forward in terms of the open access future of our journals. Microbiology is such an important discipline for understanding and improving both human health and the health of the environment, our food supply, our biotechnology, the world’s ecosystems, and much more. Researchers (as well as many of those funding the research) really want to be able to share this important work as widely as possible. As an organisation run by the microbiology community, for the microbiology community, it is important for us to provide access to the science as well as the publishing opportunities that researchers are increasingly requesting.

We are excited that for 2024, all but one of our journals is going to be to fully OA, making everything we publish in those journals freely accessible to anyone in the world with access to the internet. It hasn’t been an easy decision: it means that our journals will likely generate significantly less surplus revenue (which we use to support our community through a range of activities and events, including direct grants), and it also means that some of our authors who are not part of a “read and publish” deal with OUP and who cannot access university or funder monies to pay the publishing charge may feel unable to publish with us.

That does not sit comfortably with us, and we have engaged in a number of ways to try to lower that financial barrier, including generous discount and waiver policies. We also have kept our flagship, broad scope, subscription journal, FEMS Microbiology Letters, as free-to-publish and intend to grow it to serve those authors who cannot access any funding for OA publishing even more than it does already.

Most importantly, though, we felt that it was a priority to ensure that microbiologists across the world had access to established, high quality journals that were fully OA, as readers—but also as authors. The FEMS journals are providing an established, trustworthy OA home for authors who no longer wish to submit their work to for-profit journals: not only is FEMS not-for-profit, but so is our publisher Oxford University Press. We think it is hugely important to the long-term health of science communication that research is professionally published (with all the checks and balances that entails) and openly accessible—and published for the benefit of science and scientists across the world.

Find out more about the FEMS journals transitioning to open access.

Find out more about the RAS journals, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Geophysical Journal International, and RAS Techniques and Instruments.

Find out more about the SMBE journals, Molecular Biology and Evolution and Genome Biology and Evolution.

EP Europace: EHJ Arrhythmias and Electrophysiology provides a unique open access platform for the publication and dissemination of high-quality original science, opinion, and education from leading European and international authors. It is the official Journal of the European Heart Rhythm Association and is affiliated with the Working Groups on e-Cardiology and Cardiac Cellular Electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology.

Since EP Europace: EHJ Arrythmias and Electrophysiology transitioned to a fully open access publishing model, online usage of journal content globally has grown significantly. By removing the previous subscription “paywall” and making journal content back to Volume 1, Issue 1 freely available for all readers, we have increased the journal’s international readership and improved access to research findings for academics, clinicians, and the research community.

Find out more about EP Europace: EHJ Arrythmias and Electrophysiology.

Find out more about European Heart Journal – Imaging Methods and Practice.

Find out more about European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.