The second year of S2O and Open Access for all

2022 was the second year of IWA Publishing’s Subscribe To Open (S2O) initiative, in which 10 journals became Open Access without fees for authors.

S2O is an extremely equitable model which removes barriers to reading and publication for people in all countries. We are very grateful to the many university libraries who support S2O, along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their help.

The effect of S2O on readership and citations has been transformational. Journal articles were downloaded 5.5m times in 2022, and citations more than doubled between 2020 and 2022. Two-thirds of those citations now come from countries in the Global South. With Open Access, IWA Publishing’s journals are being read and used in all countries.

Good progress has also been made with book publishing. 80% of the books published by IWA Publishing in 2022 were Open Access. For the first time, book readership exceeded one million downloads. One quarter of the books published were in languages other than English, with titles published in French, Portuguese and Farsi.

Looking to the future, IWA Publishing has released its new Strategic Plan for 2022-2026. You can read about our initiatives to provide improved services for authors and readers, increase diversity and representation, keep citation levels rising and serve IWA members even better in the next five years.

Rod Cookson, Managing Director