Water Resources Research is one of five Journals of Wiley that flipped to Gold OA

Lib4RI is currently participating in the nationwide Read & Publish agreement with Wiley, which allows Open Access publishing in all hybrid journals without additional costs for the corresponding authors affiliated with Eawag, Empa, PSI or WSL.

Wiley has informed us that the journals Water Resources Research, Addiction Biology, Alzheimer’s and Dementia, PsyCH Journal and European Journal of Neurology will switch to Gold OA by the end of August 2023.

In general, flipping journals from hybrid to OA is a desired development. We are dissatisfied though that this transition from hybrid to Gold OA occurs in the middle of the year without any decrease to the R&P fee. With immediate effect, APCs of USD 3’000 for publications in Water Resources Research will arise, which is distinctly above the threshold of the Lib4RI OA Fund. Therefore, this change within the current contract by Wiley is very disadvantageous for the authors, as they now have to pay for the APCs themselves.

We would like to encourage authors to consider APCs when choosing a journal for publication because your decisions influence future market developments. Lib4RI will continue to provide feedback to the national negotiators to optimize OA agreements and avoid such situations in the future.