Elsevier Expands Open Access Options for Cell Press Journals from January 2021

Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics, today announced that the Cell Press portfolio of journals will be expanding open access publishing options for authors from 1 January 2021.

Open access is an integral part of Elsevier’s commitment to a more collaborative, inclusive, and transparent world of research where authors, researchers, and academic institutions can share knowledge and build on each other’s work to advance outcomes. We recognise that authors around the world have diverse needs and preferences, so we have been working collaboratively with the communities that we serve to test and learn from different ways of accelerating open access. As one of the fastest-growing open access publishers in the world, nearly all of Elsevier’s 2,600 journals now enable open access publishing, including 500 fully open access journals.

From January 2021, all authors will have the option to publish open access across the entire range of the highly regarded and influential Cell Press family of journals. This publishing route means all Cell Press authors can choose to make their research article available for everyone to read immediately following publication.

In enabling more open access, our principle is always to offer substantial value to the scientific community relative to the quality and rigour of the editorial and publishing services we provide.  As a result, for those titles that do not currently offer an open access publishing option, the article publishing charges (APCs) will be£7,000/ €7,600 /$8,900 for the majority of journals, and £7,800/€8,500/$9,900 for our flagship title, Cell. We will align our existing Cell Press APCs for hybrid journals with these new publishing charges.

These journals will also continue to offer authors the option to publish through the subscription model. Since 2004, we have made all the subscription articles published in Cell Press research journals free for everyone to read from 12 months after publication in our Open Archive.

The APCs will remain unchanged for most of our existing gold open access journals, including the growing Cell Reports family, iScience and Heliyon. Overall, the Cell Press journals will offer open access publishing at APCsstarting from £1,400/€1,500/$1,750.  

As part of our commitment to inclusion and diversity in science, we will continue to support researchers from low and middle-income countries to participate and access research. Hence, we will waive open access APCs for all 69 Group A countries in the Research4Life programme and reduce the APC by 50% for the remaining 57 Group B countries. 

Philippe Terheggen, Managing Director of Journals, Elsevier, said: “Our commitment to openness, inclusion and collaboration in research means Elsevier will support every author in publishing open access in any one of our journals, across all disciplines of research, including in our highly selective journals. We are pleased to expand open access publishing options for Cell Press journals for authors whilst maintaining the highest standards of quality and editorial rigour that our journals represent.”

Alongside this expanded open access offering, Cell Press will continue to innovate in publishing to enhance scientific communication. Previous pioneering developments have included the Article of the Future concept, which introduced new article features including graphical abstracts and highlights, the STAR Methods format that enhances reproducibility in science, and, most recently, the Community Review process designed to help authors find the right home for their paper quickly and easily through a unified, guided and consultative peer review process.

Research published in Cell Press journals is shared with the global scientific community  through cell.com, our active media outreach, dedicated events and via ScienceDirect, Elsevier’s leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature. Overall, ScienceDirect gives researchers access to 16 million articles from over 2,600 journals published by Elsevier and our society partners.