NEWS

Journals in Taylor & Francis collective funding pilot
reach target for full open access publishing

Collective Pathway to Open Publishing combines funding from OA agreements and reading access to convert journals to open access.

Taylor & Francis has confirmed both journals in its innovative pilot, Collective Pathway to Open Publishing (CPOP), will be converted to open access (OA) for 2025.

Announced in November 2024, CPOP has been devised as an alternative OA model for Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) journals, particularly those focused on regions with a high uptake of OA agreements.

With funding thresholds met for the pilot, every article in the 2025 volumes of Nordic Psychology and Nordic Social Work Research will now be published OA at no cost to authors. This includes all specialist and professional content, a key feature of HSS journals that is not usually included in OA agreements.

The CPOP model combines several existing funding sources to support the conversion of journals to OA, one volume at a time. Institutions participating in Taylor & Francis’ OA agreements fund publishing for their affiliated authors, accounting for a high percentage of articles in the Nordic pilot journals. In addition, continued support from a small group of institutions with subscriptions and other read access is used for the remaining new articles.

This collective approach enables all articles to be published OA, regardless of whether the authors have funding or are affiliated with an institution in an OA agreement.

Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research at Taylor & Francis, said: “The move to a fully open future is going to require a mix of different models, given the varying levels of funding available for OA publishing across regions and disciplines. We’re therefore delighted at the success of CPOP’s experimental approach to supporting OA conversions. Thank you to all those institutions, particularly in the Nordic countries, who have collectively made this possible by renewing their read agreement or approving articles through their open access agreement”.

CPOP is one of several pathways being created by Taylor & Francis to accelerate OA publishing. Earlier this month the publisher also announced the results of its Subscribe to Open pilot, confirming that all three of the pilot journals will be fully open access throughout 2025.