Open-access shift ‘potentially hazardous’ for learned societies

Outgoing Royal Society publishing director warns societies could suffer financial blow with open-access transition

The transition to open-access research is “potentially hazardous” for learned societies as a large portion of their income is generated from subscription fees, the outgoing Royal Society publishing director has warned.

As he left his publishing director role on 31 August, Stuart Taylor (pictured) told Research Professional News that learned societies face a “big hit” on their total income with the push to make scholarly content free to read.