In response to increasing community demand for more accessible and open science, and following our previous announcement, IOP Publishing's Materials Research Express (MRX) has now changed to a fully gold Open Access (OA) journal funded by article publication charges (APCs), with immediate effect for all new article submissions.
For an initial transition period, there will be no APC for any article submitted to MRX in October 2019. Thereafter, the APC will be GBP1100, discounted to GBP825 until the end of 2020. As part of our policy to assist authors from developing countries who choose to publish with us, corresponding authors based in the World Bank list of low income and lower-middle-income countries will also receive a full fee waiver or discount.
All articles published in MRX from volume 7 (2020) onwards will be immediately free to read under a Creative Commons licence, providing maximum visibility and allowing authors to comply with any requirements for open access publication from institutions and funders.
Since its launch in 2013, MRX has published more than 8,000 articles, received submissions from over 90 countries, and has been cited nearly 13,000 times, becoming a central platform for the dissemination of high-quality, peer-reviewed research in all areas of materials science.
Under a fully gold open access model, MRX will now provide authors with the widest possible global audience. The journal will also continue to prioritise excellence and rigour in the publishing service it provides to the whole materials science community, including authors, reviewers and readers.
Antonia Seymour, Publishing Director at IOP Publishing, said: "As a pioneer in gold open access publishing in physics since 1998, we are excited about what will become a key addition to IOP Publishing's expanding open access journal programme.
"The growth of Materials Research Express to become our largest journal is already a great editorial success story, and we look forward to the role it will now play in establishing open access as a viable and affordable publication route for all materials scientists."
Full information about this change and what it means for MRX authors is available here.
