Jeffrey BrainardThe elite Nature family of journals, including the flagship Nature, today announced it is taking the plunge into open access in scientific publishing.
The journals will become among the first highly selective titles to allow any author to pay a publishing fee to make articles immediately free to read when published.
Such open-access arrangements are being required by some European funders and foundations that seek to eliminate subscription paywalls in order to speed the flow of scientific information.Nature’s author fee, €9500, is thought to be the highest of any journal.
But the Nature Research publishing group says it is necessary to cover the costs of the full-time editors and others who produce Nature and its 32 other.