Russell Group University reaches institutional membership agreement with OA publisher Social Sciences Directory

UK-based 'gold' open access publisher Social Sciences Directory Limited today announces that Russell Group member, the University of Nottingham, has become the first university in the world to take up an institutional membership to the multi-disciplinary journal Social Sciences Directory (www.socialsciencedirectory.com).

The institutional membership, which costs GBP 2,000, will allow an unlimited number of manuscript submissions to be made without any additional payments of either article processing charges or subscriptions, up to the end of 2013. The intention is to cut the time taken to publish and disseminate research, whilst maintaining editorial quality controls. All research papers will undergo peer review and be published under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence.

Tony Simmonds, Faculty Team Leader - Social Sciences at the University of Nottingham, commented:

"Nottingham has long been a proponent of open access publishing, with an established research fund to pay open access charges. We believe this is a promising and bold venture, and one that deserves backing."

Dan Scott, founder and director, commented:

"This is a landmark agreement and I am very pleased that a university as prestigious as Nottingham has become the first to support this initiative. Having worked in subscription publishing for years, I heard academics and librarians complain about its flaws and cost but say there was no viable alternative. Open access publishing provides significant benefits for authors and readers alike in widening access, allowing author copyright retention and providing better value-for-money for taxpayers. Core to our thinking is that Social Sciences Directory provides a platform for published research across a broad range of disciplinary areas and from a wide international catchment. We hope this agreement will act as an example to other universities and that they will follow suit."