Celebrating Open Access Week 2021, new environmental open-access journals

22 Oct 2021 Michael Banks

IOP Publishing has recently announced three new open-access journals in environemental science (Courtesy: IOP Publishing)

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 subscriptions as articles 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, mored details of 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 has announced it will waive all open-access article publication charges (APCs) for articles 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.

Indeed, the new environment-focussed journals couldn’t come at a better time given that the 2021 United Nations climate Change Conference will begin in Glasgow on 31 October. Following that meeting of world leaders, the IOPP Environmental Research 2021 conference will take place from 15 to 19 November 2021. The free-to-attend virtual conference, will be one of the first major international scientific events taking place after COP26.

So, there are lots of developments both in open-access publishing and environmental science. And when it comes to COP26 itself, be sure to keep your eye out for coverage on physicsworld.com.

from physicsworld.com 22/10/2021