Quicklinks >        Read & Publish        |        Subscribe options        |        Open science        |        Open access options and prices         

OA roadmap

In 2025 we will offer authors from all regions of the world compliant open access (OA) routes to publication, three of which will be fee-free for authors. Article publishing charges (APCs) will continue to be accepted from authors only in our fully OA journal.

Transition roadmap 

OA options and prices – which is right for you?

As with any community endeavour, our OA vision only works when there is a collective will to make it happen. Support from librarians and researchers makes our charitable activities possible, with all publishing surpluses gifted back to the community through grants, awards, educational resources and the subsidising of scientific events, training courses, and various other career development opportunities. These programmes support a rich scientific culture based on accessible and trusted research for the advancement of the molecular biosciences.

Our transition to OA publishing is financially sustainable for us and cost neutral for the institutions who support our work. A sustainable OA future enables us to continue providing high-quality services to authors, readers, and institutions, with aligned models tailored to our users’ needs. 

Content published OA under a CC BY licence from 2025 in the following titles has been funded by institutional support.  No author-facing charges apply in these journals. 

• Biochemical Journal
• Biochemical Society Transactions
• Clinical Science
• Essays in Biochemistry
• Emerging Topics in Life Sciences

Option 1

Institutional customers who require premium publish-based services, are likely to be research-intensive institutions whose authors need guaranteed OA publishing. Option 1 customers will sign a Read & Publish licence which unlocks additional benefits to the standard ‘read’ services provided to all subscribers, those additional features are: 

• Guaranteed OA publishing for corresponding authors in all subscription journals without any author-facing fees.
• OA charges (APCs) in Bioscience Reports are also covered in addition to subscription journals, removing author-facing charges for corresponding authors in this fully OA journal,
• Additional services to help librarians manage research output and OA spending.
• Article-level tracking reports from our partners, CCC Rightslink and OA Switchboard.
• Automated deposit to institutional repositories via Publications Router.
• Access to the full archive of all journals, with perpetual access to subscribed years.

Option 2 

With a standard set of services for libraries and their users, option 2  is for subscribing institutions  who may be research producing but heavily rely on our published research to deliver educational programmes and that facilitate learning and knowledge sharing.  With collective support of all subscribers renewing, this option provides:

• Conditional OA via the collective support of subscribers, with a threshold target determining whether the contents of a volume are published OA; that decision is communicated by the beginning of March in any year.
• Access to two years back archive and perpetual access to subscribed years.
• Article impact measurement and standard reader-focused services such as COUNTER compliant usage reports.
• High-quality reading experience, with a full suite of reader-based services.

Option 3

Bioscience Reports is a fully OA journal. Unless covered under Option 1 (Read & Publish licence), authors are charged an APC to publish immediately OA with a CC BY licence. Prices, discount and waiver policies can be found in our open access policy. 

Option 4

Authors may deposit their author accepted manuscript in an institutional or subject-based repository with zero embargo.

A further note on options

These options have been developed in close collaboration with communities who have developed them under names such as Read & Publish, Subscribe to Open and Green OA. We use a combination of models to achieve the greatest uptake of OA in the most equitable, sustainable way possible. As such our models may depart from others using those labels. We adhere to core principles and follow community best practices.