Library purchasing

The Royal Society journals

The Royal Society's peer reviewed journals are essential reading for all science departments. Our publishing is driven by the mission of the Society; to recognise, promote and support excellence in science. All our research journals are broad and interdisciplinary in their approach, helping researchers to see where their work fits into the wider scientific landscape and make connections across subject boundaries. We cover all of science.

The ‘A’ side scholarly journals focus on the physical sciences; physics, mathematics and engineering. The ‘B’ side scholarly journals are for articles in biology and life sciences. Interface and Interface Focus bridge this subject divide. Themed issues from prominent guest editors and varying article types including short reports, reviews, opinion, and synthesis mean we do much more than report on the results of research. Our editors actively commission and curate journal issues on topics that are vital to scientists in many different disciplines. Our articles are downloaded over 30 million times every year and cited long after publication. 

Our peer reviewed hybrid journals are: 

Philosophical Transactions A
Influential themed journal issues across the physical sciences; physics, mathematics and engineering.

Proceedings A 
Research articles in chemical, computational, mathematical, physical, engineering and earth sciences.

Biology Letters
Short, innovative research from across the biological sciences.

Philosophical Transactions B
Influential themed journal issues across the life sciences.

Proceedings B
Dedicated to the fast publication and worldwide dissemination of high-quality biological research.

Journal of Royal Society Interface
Cross-disciplinary research bridging the life sciences / physical sciences divide.

Interface Focus
Themed issues on vital topics covering cross-disciplinary research.

Notes and Records
Original, international research in the history of science, technology and medicine.

Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society
A unique compilation of obituaries celebrating the lives and scientific achievements of Fellows of the Royal Society.

In addition to our hybrid journals, we have two fast-growing gold open access scholarly journals. 

Royal Society Open Science
High quality research across all of science; continuous publication ensures fast access to the latest research. 

Open Biology
Established in response to researcher requests for a home for open access cellular and molecular biology papers.

Publishing developments

Just as the Society plays a role in leading different aspects of science, Royal Society Publishing is at the forefront of new publishing developments. These include the introduction of open peer review, a transparent pricing policy that prevents us double charging for subscriptions and article processing charges, and an open access policy that allows authors to deposit their work in a repository. Institutions can purchase both access to journals and uncapped open access publishing for their researchers through a Read & Publish agreement.

We require authors to provide open data and make our peer reviewed journals available for data mining to improve discoverability through different platforms and tools. We are global in our outlook and our editors and reviewers come from all over the world. Our Royal Society Open Access Equity scheme supports tens of thousands of researchers based in over 100 low- and middle-income countries and territories by providing free access and/or automatic APC waivers.

Get in touch

Library partners all over the world renew their relationship with us every year. Download the 2025 journals catalogue to find out more.

Most of our peer reviewed journals are purchased as part of a package that offers a discount on the list price. If your institution subscribes to our journals and your researchers regularly publish with us, you may well gain extra value from moving to a Read & Publish model. Institutions who are not quite ready for a transformative deal can continue to subscribe and support their authors to publish open access with us through our Open Access Membership scheme. 

Contact your local sales representative to purchase a subscription or arrange a free trial for your library from Royal Society Publishing.