Amsterdam University Press launches "AUP Diamond Open HSS"

Welcomed as an important development for specialized journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Amsterdam University Press (AUP) will take the step of publishing five of its core journals in Open Access, under an innovative ‘subscribe-to-open model’ (S2O), starting with their 2020 volumes.
Amsterdam University Press launches "AUP Diamond Open HSS"
Photo by Nils Rasmusson on Unsplash.

AUP believes that in order to maintain a diverse, dynamic, sustainable, and enterprising publishing ecosystem the availability of multiple models is necessary. Following constructive consultation with Editorial Boards and other stakeholders, AUP is moving forward with a subscribe-to-open model that will make use of existing resources (subscriptions) for making these journals available in Open Access, while maintaining rigorous quality control and production standards. Authors will be able to publish articles in these journals with no costs to themselves. The journals will also be fully Plan S compliant.

From the first of May, the following journals will be published in Open Access through the new model: Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing, DNK. Documentatieblad voor de Nederlandse kerkgeschiedenis na 1800, Pedagogiek, and Trajecta. Religion, Culture and Society in the Low Countries.

Managing Director, Jan-Peter Wissink: “AUP is proud to be taking the lead among humanities publishers in this bold step towards Diamond Open Access. Having looked at the options we strongly believe that the Subscribe-to-Open model is the most sustainable for all stakeholders: editors, authors, readers, libraries and humanities presses. By deploying the subscription fees to support universal access to these journals, authors can publish for free in high quality, peer-reviewed publications. We are also thankful to the editorial boards of the journals involved for taking this step with us.”

Jacco Pekelder, Editor-in-Chief of Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis (TvG): “We are very enthusiastic about this bold initiative of AUP. TvG and AUP have been exchanging ideas on Open Access publishing for some time and now to see it realized gives us a lot of confidence in our journal’s future. In today’s highly volatile academic context it is so good to know the publisher has your back. Our hope now is that universities, libraries and readers will continue to support us and the Dutch-language history community we serve.”

George Harinck, Editor of DNK. Documentatieblad voor Nederlandse kerkgeschiedenis na 1800 and Trajecta: “The board of editors of DNK and of Trajecta have been looking for opportunities for Open Access publishing in the past years. We now get this opportunity thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of AUP. We are excited about this new perspective for our journals. And we trust that the libraries and academic institutions will put their money where their mouth is, by continuing their subscriptions in order to realize Open Access via S2O. In this way our journals will get optimal outreach, authors will find the largest readership possible, and the reader gets maximum access to the most recent academic publications.”

Jos Hornikx, Editor-in-Chief of Tijdschrift voor Taalbeheersing adds: “While some large publishers have been able to secure Open Access publishing for their collections of journals for Dutch academics, we have for a long time puzzled about how our journal could also benefit from this publishing model. We are therefore very proud of AUP to take this step. Open Access publishing will be a stimulus for authors to submit as well as for readers to access our articles.”

S2O was initiated by Annual Reviews. The AUP Open HSS adaptation was developed and implemented in close cooperation with the Journals Editorial Boards and the academic community. Full details on the AUP Diamond Open HSS pilot can be found here.

About Amsterdam University Press (AUP)

AUP has almost thirty years of experience in providing readers with high-quality scholarly publications and textbooks. AUP’s academic program specializes in the Humanities and Social Sciences, with established and growing lists in Asian Studies, Film, Media and Communication, History, Language and Literature, and Social and Political Sciences. In 2019, AUP published over 140 academic monographs and edited collections. AUP publishes 21 academic journals, of which 15 are now available in Open Access at no costs to the author.

AUP has long been a wholehearted initiator and supporter of sustainable Open Access publishing and releases many academic books and journals for Open Access directly after publication. To this end, it works closely with platforms such as JSTOR, the OAPEN Library, and the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). In 2020, AUP joined the Open Research Library (ORL), part of the Knowledge Unlatched (KU) global initiative for Open Access publishing.

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Thursday, April 30th, 2020