Royal Society Open Access Equity

In keeping with our role as the UK's national academy of science, we fund open access where there is a cost barrier for authors. Our Royal Society Open Access Equity scheme supports tens of thousands of eligible researchers in over 100 low- and middle-income countries and territories by providing:

• Access to all Royal Society Journal articles free of charge
• Automatic waivers for open access article processing charges (APCs) in all Royal Society journals 

Automatic APC waivers now extended to all journals

We offer free open access publication to researchers from low- and medium-income countries and territories on Open Biology and Royal Society Open Science. On 1 August 2023 we extended this to all our optional open access journals to share the benefits of open access.  

Corresponding authors at institutions in the countries and territories listed below will be eligible based on the submission date. This is applicable for papers first submitted after 31 July 2023. No application is required and authors will be automatically recognised as eligible for open access publishing once their paper has been accepted with no direct cost to them or their institution. Please ensure that you select the open access option when prompted if you wish to benefit from this.

All original research, including research articles, review articles, rapid communications, brief reports, and case reports are eligible. 

Eligible countries and territories

A full list of countries and territories with free access and/or automatic APC waivers follows. If your country is not listed, you will still be able to access some Royal Society journal content for free or be eligible for a discretionary waiver in our fully open access journals. 

International partners

We support researchers in over 100 low- and middle-income countries and territories by partnering with a number of international schemes. 

• International Network for Advancing Science and Policy Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information (INASP PERii): ensures low-and middle-income countries are part of international knowledge networks. 
• HINARI Programme: set up by WHO together with major publishers, enables low-and middle-income countries to gain access to 1 of the world's largest collections of biomedical and health literature. 
• Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE): an international public-private consortium coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Yale University enables developing countries to gain access to 1 of the world's largest collections of environmental science research. 
• Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA): a program to provide free or low cost access to major scientific journals in agriculture and related biological, environmental and social sciences to public institutions in developing countries.  
• Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL): works with libraries worldwide to enable access to digital information in developing and transition countries. They are an international not for profit organisation based in Europe with a global network of partners.  
• Research4Life provides institutions in lower income countries with online access to academic and professional peer-reviewed content. With the aim to improve teaching, research and policy-making in health, agriculture, the environment and other life, physical and social sciences.