The American Physiological Society (APS) and Jisc announce today a Read, Publish and Join pilot offering UK institutions unlimited, immediate open access publishing in the APS Digital Library.

This innovative custom publishing model is the first of its kind, bundling reading and publishing under a simple annual fee, with the additional bonus of a one-year membership for authors who publish with APS.

APS is the first US-based biomedical society to enter into a transitional agreement with Jisc, offering this critical research community the opportunity to publish in APS journals in compliance with UK funder mandates. The addition of APS membership connects UK researchers to the society’s multidisciplinary community of scientists and educators from around the world, driving collaboration and spotlighting scientific discoveries in physiology.

The pilot will be in effect in 2021 and 2022 and will include access to the APS Digital Library – which includes content from ten physiology research journals and two review journals. 

Stacey Burke, director of publications marketing and sales, APS, said:

“This transformative arrangement with Jisc will take away administrative barriers for participating UK libraries and give their researchers the immediate and seamless option they need to publish their open access work with APS.

“Jisc is clearly dedicated to learned societies like APS, and their importance in the scholarly communication ecosystem making them ideal candidates to further our Read, Publish and Join model.”

Kathryn Spiller, licensing manager at Jisc, said:

“We are delighted that this agreement offers Jisc members unlimited open access publishing with an esteemed learned society like APS.

“The additional ‘join’ element is the first of its kind, and represents a further incentive for institutions to sign up and is a great benefit to their researchers. We hope that this will inspire other US society publishers to work with Jisc to develop new, innovative and compliant models to enable a sustainable transition to open access.”

The APS Read, Publish and Join agreement with Jisc is based on historical publishing and subscription spends and offer one simple annual fee. For institutions that opt-in, their patrons receive access to the APS Digital Library and unlimited open access publishing, plus the unique bonus of a one-year APS membership for corresponding authors.

APS will automatically identify these authors based on their institutional affiliation. Upon acceptance of their manuscript with APS, the author will be notified that their work can be published under an open CC-BY license without paying article processing charges. This option, provided by their library and APS, allows the author to retain copyright of their article.

Colette Bean, chief publishing officer at APS, said:

“Models like our Read, Publish and Join are part of the society’s efforts to find sustainable publishing options in an open access future.

“In our diverse community, we need to support all researchers around the globe including early-career researchers, those without adequate funding and those submitting research reports when their grants have been exhausted.” 

APS’ mission is to advance scientific discovery, understand life and improve health. Serving the research and professional development needs of the vibrant APS community is the society’s top priority.

Programs like the innovative Read, Publish and Join initiative – which provides researchers with a frictionless open access publishing process that gives them a platform for their work and complies with their local funder requirements – are critical to that mission. 

To find out more about bringing the Read, Publish and Join model to your institution, email Stacey Burke (sburke@the-aps.org).