Launched in May 2011, Sage Open applies the same approach to the humanities and social science as PLoS ONE has successfully applied to the sciences, with a cross-disciplinary remit and a rapid peer-review model which assesses papers only for their methodological validity rather than their significance.

Recognition that non-science academics often lacked specific research funding led the California-based commercial publisher to launch Sage Open with an article fee of just $695, compared with PLoS ONE¡¯s $1,350 - and $5,000 at Elsevier¡¯s Cell titles.

Sage Open has so far received more than 1,400 manuscripts, and published more than 160 articles. However, a recent survey of authors indicated that more than 70 per cent of Sage Open¡¯s accepted authors had paid the article fee out of their own pocket, while only 15 per cent of all articles published in 2012 across Sage¡¯s fleet of humanities and social sciences journals derived from research projects with allocated funding.

Bob Howard, vice-president of US journals at Sage also pointed to the Finch Report and Research Councils UK¡¯s new open-access policy which, from April, will require all its funded research to be published in an open-access format.

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Humanities and social science researchers in the UK are particularly concerned about plans by the funding councils, subject to a consultation in the spring, to require all articles submitted to the research excellence framework that comes after REF 2014 to be ¡°as widely accessible as may be reasonably achievable¡±. There is no suggestion that they will top up the block grants that RCUK will provide to help cover article fees.

Mr Howard said he viewed Sage Open¡¯s reduction of its article fee to $99 as ¡°an investment in the future of open-access publishing in the social sciences¡±

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¡°We will continue to adapt to our evolving landscape in order to better support humanities and social science scholars,¡± he said.

The biomedical open-access journal PeerJ, launched last year, allows researchers to publish a paper every year for a one-off fee of $99 - rising to $299 for a lifetime of unlimited publishing.

paul.jump@tsleducation.com