Subscribe to Open (S2O) is a new and innovative business model for publisher’s journals. The model is important especially in economics and the social sciences as a bridge to Open Access Transformation. Subscribe to Open is a pragmatic approach for converting subscription journals to free Open Access without costs for authors (article processing charges).
Open Access without publication fees is also known as Diamond Open Access.
Subscribe to Open is based on existing library subscriptions. If a sufficient number of subscribers participate in the Subscribe to Open offer, the publisher grants Open Access to the contents. If participation is insufficient, the publisher can restrict access to subscribers only again.
The ZBW pilots the Subscribe to Open model in cooperation with the renowned academic publisher Duncker & Humblot. In 2022, the cooperation partners transformed two journals to Open Access:
- Credit and Capital Markets / Kredit und Kapital
- Journal of Contextual Economics / Schmollers Jahrbuch
In addition to providing new publications in Diamond Open Access, the ZBW also supported the release of older volumes of the two journals. This made several thousands of articles freely available and reusable under a CC-BY licence.
Other model projects are currently being negotiated.
Are you interested? You are welcome to contact us.
