This week is Open Access Week. The international event, now in its eighth year, aims to promote discussion of the potential benefits of open access publishing and to inspire wider participation.
With fully open access publishing, papers are available immediately to anyone with an internet connection for free since the cost of publication has been paid for by the author, their institution or their funder. With more authors choosing to publish in this way, the landscape of academic publishing is changing rapidly and this brings both opportunities and challenges.
The Society is actively shaping policy debates on open access publishing and is committed to supporting the geographical community by offering information and guidance as well as publishing opportunities that are compliant with UK open access mandates from funders.
Information and guidance
The Society has produced Open Access: a guide for researchers (PDF), which explores the different open access publishing models, the advantages of open access publishing for authors and how to access resources to pay for Article Publication Charges as well as the key funder rules and policies that are currently in force.
This guide is accompanied by two reflective pieces on open access, Open access that works for geographers (PDF) and Writing for open access (PDF), written by leading scholars Professor Jenny Pickerill and Dr Josh Lepawsky.
Publishing opportunities
The Society has launched a new fully open access journal, Geo: Geography and Environment, in partnership with Wiley, which is now open for submissions. Geo publishes high-quality, original articles from across the spectrum of geographical and environmental inquiry.
Co-Editor of Geo, Gail Davies comments: “The launch of Geo at the Society’s Annual International Conference in August created a buzz about open, collaborative and interdisciplinary research. It was the start of an important conversation, continuing in the latest journal submissions, which indicate how open access publishing will shape the co-production of geographical knowledge for the future”.
Geo joins an established portfolio of prestigious journals, Area, The Geographical Journal, WIREs Climate Change and Transactions of the Insitutute of British Geographers, which, while subscription-based, also offer authors the option of making their articles open access.
“By offering open access publishing opportunities, the Society is strengthening its commitment to publish and disseminate high quality research and reach the widest possible audience” said Dr Catherine Souch, Head of Research and Higher Education at the Society.
To find out more about the ways the Society is involved in policy discussions about the implementation of open access and for the latest updates, visit the Society’s Open access and the geographical community webpage.