IEEE Commits its Entire Hybrid Journal Portfolio to Transformative Journal Status Aligned with Plan S

IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, announced today that it has committed its full portfolio of more than 160 hybrid journals, which publish both open access and subscription-based content, to become Transformative Journals under Plan S. 

This commitment means that any authors receiving research grants from Coalition S, a group of research funders, are compliant with Plan S requirements when publishing their research articles in any IEEE fully open access or hybrid journals. In addition to the existing direct open access agreements with hundreds of institutions, all of IEEE’s hybrid journals now qualify as ‘Transformative Journals’ under Plan S.

“IEEE has a long-time dedication to serving the global author and research community by offering a choice of quality publications to share their work, with publications choices that are compliant with their circumstances, regardless of their funding status, the publishing mandates they may have in place or where in the world they may work,” said Karen Hawkins, Chief Marketing Officer, IEEE. 

“This development represents a major step in IEEE’s continued support and commitment to open science, and ensures that more authors can continue to publish in the publication of their choice and still be in compliance with Coalition S funder requirements,” said Lawrence Hall, Vice President, Publication Services and Products, IEEE.

IEEE has worked directly with the leadership of Coalition S to ensure compliance with the Plan S criteria for transformative publications. Under this criteria, a Transformative Journal is a subscription/hybrid journal that is committed to eventually transition to a fully OA journal over time. In addition, it is required to gradually increase the share of OA content and offset subscription income from payments for publishing services. More details on the Coalition S criteria for Transformative Journals and the open access publication targets for each IEEE transformative journal can be found here.

This transition to Transformative Journal status is another demonstration of IEEE’s ongoing commitment to working with institutions and funders to provide sustainable open access publishing opportunities to authors that allow for a wider dissemination of knowledge and enables authors to maximize exposure of their research. IEEE has continued to expand its open access program and now publishes nearly 30 fully open access titles in fields such as computing, telecommunications, biomedical engineering, nanotechnology and many other related fields. In addition, IEEE has signed open access agreements with over 300 institutions around the world with recent additions such as the University of California, the CRUI Association of Italian Universities, CERN, the Irish higher education consortium, the Finnish higher education consortium and many more.

To learn more about the IEEE open access options for authors and institutions or to view a list of institutions that have an open access agreement with IEEE, please visit open.ieee.org.