Scientific publisher Nature Publishing Group (NPG) has announced that Nature Communications is to become the first Nature-branded open access only journal. The number one open access journal in multidisciplinary sciences, Nature Communications is NPG's flagship open access title. Nature Communications will accept open access research submissions from October 20, 2014.
Nature Communications ranks as the number three multidisciplinary journal in the world behind Nature and Science. The title was launched in 2010 as a born-digital hybrid journal, publishing both open access and subscription content. Nature Communications is now one of NPG's fastest growing titles, receiving over 1500 submissions every month. All research published by the journal represents important advances, of significance to specialists within a field, in all areas of the biological, physical, chemical and earth sciences.
NPG is also making further policy moves with this development. Nature Communications now offers the CC BY 4.0 license as default, with other Creative Commons (CC) licenses available upon request. There is no price difference for the choice of CC license. APC waivers will be available for HINARI countries, and to others on a case-by-case basis.
Nature Publishing Group will honour author's choice of subscription or open access publication, for those authors whose research is currently in review by the journal, and for submissions up to October 19, 2014. This means that subscription content will continue to be published in 2015, and available to site license customers. Major funders including Wellcome, RCUK, NIH, NSF, HHMI, CAS allow funds to be used for APCs, and NPG will work with authors to help them identify funds for open access publication.
NPG is committed to continue to publish all other Nature-branded titles as subscription journals, and will continue to offer hybrid OA options on all its other journals.
A report by the Research Information Network recently found that there is a significant benefit for article views and downloads, as well as a small but significant citation benefit to publishing open access in Nature Communications.
