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BioOne Pilot
BioOne is proud to report that the Subscribe to Open (S2O) pilot has reached its sustainability threshold for 2026, thanks to the critical support of consortia and library partners around the world.
With our mission to maximize access to critical research, BioOne has always supported sustainable pathways to open access. By offering a Subscribe to Open pilot for selected titles in BioOne Complete, we are continuing to advance this mission and increase access to content, benefiting libraries, publishers, and the wider biosciences community.
BioOne is proud to offer 71 titles from 54 members of our publishing community via our Subscribe to Open pilot, marking the largest number of independent publishers under a single S2O offer to date. The pilot offering includes titles that are available exclusively to researchers via BioOne Complete, representing societies, museums, research organizations, and independent presses. Among the pilot cohort are the first S2O titles published in Japan, Brazil, China, and Kenya. BioOne Complete will remain a mixed-model collection of subscribed, S2O, and gold OA titles through the 2028 pilot year.
How S2O Works
Partnering Publishers
See the full list of societies, museums, and independent presses that have confirmed their participation in the S2O pilot.
Partnering Consortia & Libraries
Advancing Sustainable OA in the Biosciences Community
Watch the recording of our September 2025 panel discussion covering Subscribe to Open’s alignment with our community’s shared values, with an emphasis on sustainability, considerations for non-profit publishers and their authors, library perspectives on the impact of S2O, and how to participate.
Subscribe to Open Offer – Publisher FAQs
Subscribe to Open (S2O) is a business model that provides a practical path to opening a journal’s new content while safeguarding subscription revenue. As the name suggests, S2O is an extension of the subscription model that makes open access (OA) for the current term year content contingent on the continued, upfront support of subscribers. If subscribers continue to support the offer, then the current-year’s content will be opened. If not, the content remains gated. The offer recurs annually to ensure stable subscriber support.
Increasingly, libraries, research funders, and authors are demanding open access to published research. While some publishers rely on article processing charges (APCs) to fund OA dissemination, that model does not work for many BioOne journals, for which research funding is limited. Allowing journals to participate in a BioOne Subscribe to Open offer provides a low-risk path to opening their new research while ensuring a stable BioOne royalty.
BioOne launched its Subscribe to Open offer in January 2026 including 71 titles from 54 publishers. Thanks to support from our library community, the 2026 threshold has been met and all 2026 content from publishers participating in the S2O pilot will be published OA on the BioOne Digital Library platform. This offer will repeat for the 2027 and 2028 pilot years.
No. Participating titles are a subset of those journals exclusively available via BioOne Complete. The BioOne Complete subscription will remain a single collection of gated, Subscribe to Open, and Open Access titles.
Under a Subscribe to Open offer, open access to current content is wholly contingent on the continued upfront commitment of subscribers. A year’s new content will not be opened until that year’s subscription target is reached. In the case of BioOne, there is an additional incentive to remain a subscriber as not all titles will be available via S2O, and a subscriber must maintain a subscription to BioOne Complete to receive access to backfile content.
The royalty model for gated titles will not change. For titles participating in the pilot S2O offer, BioOne is offering a guaranteed revenue share for the 2026-2028 pilot term.
This is unlikely, as most society members already have access to the society’s journal via their institution’s subscription to BioOne Complete or directly via BioOne’s free society member access program. In fact many societies report that their membership are broadly supportive of open access. As a result, opening the journal’s current content should have no appreciable effect on the value of society membership.
Subscribe to Open is conditional open access. BioOne will assign current articles in S2O journals a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) license. As a result, those S2O articles will be available open access under that license. The Subscribe to Open offer will not open backfile content. Licensed access to the journal backfile content will continue to provide a powerful incentive for libraries to continue to subscribe to BioOne Complete.
Yes. Although opening current content under S2O is contingent on the continued upfront commitment of subscribers, a journal can implement a self-archiving policy (“Green OA”) that allows authors to deposit their article in an institutional or subject-based repository to comply with relevant funder open access mandates. In this way, an individual article is guaranteed to be open irrespective of whether an annual S2O offer succeeds.
Meredith Pond
Associate Director, Publishing
Publishing@BioOne.org
Subscribe to Open Offer – Librarian FAQs
BioOne launched the inaugural Subscribe to Open offer in January 2026 including 71 titles from 54 participating publishers. The pilot period will last through the 2026 – 2028 subscription years.
Thanks to library support, the 2026 threshold has been met and all 2026 content from publishers participating in the S2O pilot will be published OA on the BioOne Digital Library platform.
No, BioOne Complete will remain a single collection of gated, Subscribe to Open, and Open Access titles. 71 of 219 titles are participating in the pilot.
A library participates in the BioOne S2O program simply by renewing its existing subscription by the annual participation deadline. During the 2026-2028 pilot period, those subscriptions will support a portion of the titles in the collection in making all their current volume-year content open access. S2O does not require new investment from libraries – just continued support for a trusted, vital scholarly resource.
The titles participating in S2O will continue to be included in BioOne Complete along with conventional gated subscription journals and gold open access titles.
Libraries not currently subscribing to BioOne Complete may participate by beginning a subscription. Learn about BioOne Complete in our How to Subscribe and Access section.
Comprehensive details of the S2O pilot for our library partners are available to download. The full list of S2O participating titles and publishers is included, and libraries can also refer to the full BioOne Complete title list. Renewal pricing for BioOne Complete has been announced earlier in the year than usual, so that subscribing libraries and consortia will have ample time to make renewal commitments. In addition, BioOne is pleased to offer multi-year licenses with predictable pricing for the duration of the 2026-2028 pilot years. Many consortia and institutions have accepted multi-year arrangements, so please contact us to find out if your consortia is already participating.
Subscribing libraries secure the following exclusive benefits for their institutions:
- Guaranteed access to all current year content from both subscribed and S2O titles – regardless of the success of the pilot
- Access to all backfile content for subscribed and S2O titles, approx. 195K articles
- Perpetual access to paid current year content, per the terms of your license agreement
Please download our S2O information sheet for libraries for more details, including a full list of participating titles.
Yes. Subscribe to Open subscriptions will be handled via BioOne’s standard order and invoicing process. Libraries will be able to renew subscriptions or place new orders via the same channels. BioOne’s relationships with library consortia, sales partners, and subscription agents worldwide have been crucial to our ability to reach and serve a large and diverse customer base. Libraries may continue to subscribe via the channel of their choice, and all of our existing consortium discounts will remain available.
Subscribe to Open offers operate on a calendar year (CY) basis, so all BioOne Complete subscriptions must align with the CY.
We will continue to offer our flagship collection, BioOne Complete, which has been available for many years. Building our S2O program around this collection means that libraries can support journals transitioning to open, simply by renewing their subscriptions to this trusted, essential resource. The titles included in BioOne Complete will not change – the titles that participate in the S2O program will simply make their new content OA if the program is successful.
Our approach to collection pricing will not change. Libraries can expect to continue paying the same amount for BioOne Complete under our S2O program. As now, modest increases will continue to be necessary to cover platform innovation, compliance with evolving industry standards, and increases in our operating costs. BioOne’s aggregation model has successfully kept subscription fees affordable for libraries while returning more than 60% of our revenues to participating nonprofit and society publishers. This reinvestment of library funds enables our publishing partners to remain independent and sustain their critical research communities.
No. BioOne Complete and the BioOne S2O offer will remain discrete from that offered by Project Muse and Hopkins Press. This is necessitated by BioOne’s ongoing royalty structure with its valued publisher participants.
BioOne has reached the S2O sustainability threshold for the 2026 offer term. Therefore the content published within the 2026 volume year of each of the 71 participating titles will publish Open Access on the BioOne Digital Library platform. The S2O offer will repeat in 2027 and 2028 for the corresponding volume years.
BioOne will announce the results of the annual offer in Q1 of 2026, 2027, and 2028.
An institution can participate in S2O by subscribing to BioOne Complete. Please see How to Subscribe or contact BioOne Sales.
Christine Orr
Director, BioOne
Christine@BioOne.org
+1 202 296 1605 x4