Shift+OPEN – An MIT Press program to flip journals to open access

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applications due April 30, 2024

shift+OPEN

An MIT Press initiative to flip subscription journals to open access.

The MIT Press welcomes applications for shift+OPEN, our new program designed to flip existing subscription-based journals to a diamond open access publishing model. Launched with generous funding from the Arcadia Fund and expanded with funding from the National Science Foundation, shift+OPEN seeks to catalyze needed change in journals publishing, introduce authors to new readerships, and increase the reach of vital scholarship that has previously been locked behind paywalls.

Key dates
  • January 2024
    applications open for second year
  • April 30, 2024
    application period closes
  • July 1, 2024
    Preliminary review complete
  • Fall 2024
    Finalist(s) announced

What will shift+OPEN provide?

  • Funding to cover the expenses of transitioning your journal to open access model, for a term of up to three years.
  • The MIT Press’s full suite of publishing services, including production, marketing, financial management, hosting, abstracting and indexing, and manuscript management software.
  • Support for developing a sustainable funding model to keep the journal publishing OA beyond the end of the term.

Is your journal eligible?

We welcome submissions for journals in any field, and we especially encourage submissions on behalf of titles that are in fields that have been slower to embrace open access publishing. We have no geographic restrictions and welcome submissions from any part of the world.

This program is intended for existing titles that have been publishing in English for a minimum of three years using a subscription model. It is not open to new journal launches or journals that are currently open access. We anticipate publishing only in a digital format but will consider submissions that have a print component.

Applications will be evaluated by a committee of MIT faculty and MIT Press staff members.

Success stories

The MIT Press has a long history of being at the leading edge of open access journal publishing. From opening access to Computational Linguistics in 2010 to publishing overlay journal Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 in 2020, the Press has embraced the need to broaden the dissemination of our journals while developing new models that work for everyone, including authors, editors, societies, and universities.

  • The inaugural publications for shift+OPEN are European Sociological Association journals European Societies and European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology. New diamond open access issues will be available starting in 2025. Ferro said a pivotal factor to apply for shift+OPEN was the MIT Press‘s reputation as a trailblazer in open access publishing: “The MIT Press leads the academic publishing field by promoting high-quality research while using knowledge as a tool to empower individuals and societies. . . . Our firsthand experience with the Press’s unwavering professionalism and high standards during the bidding process cemented our decision.”
  • Quantitative Science Studies (QSS) formed after the resignation of the editorial board of the subscription-based Journal of Informetrics (JOI), in 2019. QSS articles have since been downloaded over 825K times, and the journal earned an inaugural impact factor of 6.4 in 2023.  Download the QSS Case Study [PDF]
  • Imaging Neuroscience launched in April 2023 when the editorial teams of Neuroimage and Neuroimage: Reports made international news by resigning en masse in protest of high APC charges. Embraced by the academic community, the journal signed up more than 2,500 peer reviewers and has already received several hundred submissions.

What is it like to flip a journal to open access?

In this webinar, the editors of Quantitative Science Studies describe the process of flipping a journal to open access, including the decision-making process, logistics, and results.

Contact

If you have any questions please contact our Journals and Open Access Director Nick Lindsay at nlindsay (at) mit.edu.