Next week marks International Open Access Week 2021, which has as its theme “It matters how we open knowledge: building structural equity”. Now in its 13th year, the global event aims to promote the benefits of open-access publishing.
Open-access publishing – which removes the requirement for journal subscriptions as research papers are instead made immediately and freely available for anyone to read and reuse in their own work – has been going from strength to strength in recent years.
To mark Open Access Week, which runs from 25-31 October 2021, IOP Publishing (IOPP) is planning to publish a series of video and interviews about open access, which you can find here.
Environmental concerns
IOPP, which publishes Physics World, has also recently announced three new open-access journals to boost the publisher’s open-access portfolio. Environmental Research: Health and Environmental Research: Climate are now accepting papers while Environmental Research: Ecology will open for submissions later this year. They will join three other journals belonging to the Environmental Research series, which address major areas of environmental science.
To support researchers, IOPP will waive all open-access article publication charges (APCs) for papers that are submitted to the three new launches before 2024. After the initial waiver period, authors from low- and middle-income countries who publish in IOPP’s new journals will not have to pay any APCs.
Authors of papers published in the new journals will also be encouraged to share data and code where appropriate and have the option to submit their paper for double anonymous and transparent peer review.
Getting physical with the climate crisis
The new environment-focused journals couldn’t come at a better time given that the 2021 United Nations climate Change Conference will begin in Glasgow, UK, on 31 October. Immediately after that meeting of world leaders, IOP Publishing will be hosting Environmental Research 2021 – an online conference that will take place from 15 to 19 November 2021. The free-to-attend virtual event will be one of the first major international scientific meetings to take place after COP26.
Don’t miss either the Physics World Weekly podcasts on 28 October and 4 November, both of which will examine some of the issues at stake at COP26.
