Open Access articles attract far more attention than non-Open Access articles—in some cases more than 10-fold. Open Access articles are immediately available to a much broader audience, including the general public. This potentially results in a wider and greater impact and faster citation growth.

The Academic community promotes Open Access as the desired publication model for disseminating research results and in many situations today publication with Open Access is mandatory.

Inter-Research (IR) supports the 'Diamond', 'Gold' and 'Green' models of Open Access.

*Creative Commons Labelling

Only articles clearly marked with "CC BY" in the top right corner of the front page are published with the Creative Commons by Attribution Licence. The CC-BY option was not available for Inter-Research journals before 1 April 2013. Articles marked "Open Access" or "Free Access" but not marked "CC BY" were made freely accessible at the time of publication but are subject to standard copyright law regarding reproduction and distribution.

As of Vol. 14, Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics (ESEP) is published with Diamond Open Access, i.e. entirely Open Access under the Creative Commons by Attribution Licence (CC-BY) at no cost to authors. All articles in Vols. 1 to 13 are freely accessible to all users (Free Access).

IR offers Gold Open Access under the Creative Commons by Attribution License (CC-BY) in all journals except ESEP (see ‘Diamond’ Open Access above) on payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC). Fee discounts or waivers are available for particular categories of hardship (see ‘Fee waivers’ below).

Fully Open Access journals

For the fully Open Access journals Endangered Species Research (ESR), Aquatic Biology (AB), and Aquaculture Environment Interactions (AEI), purchase of Open Access is mandatory.

Hybrid journals

In the 'Hybrid' journals (subscriber access, with optional purchase of Open Access for individual articles); articles not published with Open Access will become freely accessible to all users 5 years after publication. These journals are transforming to fully Open Access journals. See Transformative Journals

Article processing charges

Article Processing Charges (APCs) for Open Access depend on article type and date of article submission.

Submitted on or after 1 November 2022:

Feature Articles 

Feature Articles are published with Open Access at no cost to authors.

Tax information

For purchases in the European Union, the VAT number of the paying institution must be provided, otherwise VAT will be added at the standard rate for the country of the purchaser. For Germany, VAT at 7% will always be added.

The following institutions have Read and Publish Agreements with Inter-Research. The institution’s subscription pays for Open Access publication of articles authored by its members as well as for reader access to subscriber-locked material. Articles with the Corresponding Author affiliated to any of these institutions are published with Open Access in any of the Inter-Research journals (unless otherwise indicated) without paying the Article Processing Charge (APC).

• Georgia Institute of Technology (USA, 2025–2026)
• King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) (Saudi Arabia, 2025)
• University of Oviedo (Spain, 2025, Read: MEPS; Publish: MEPS, AME, DAO, CR)

‘Gold’ Open Access articles

No restrictions. Authors are free to post the Preprint, Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM), and publisher’s Version of Record (VoR) of their ‘Gold’ Open Access article under a CC-BY License on any website or in any online repository.

‘Subscriber Access' articles

Authors may self-archive 'Subscriber Access' articles as follows:

Preprints

Authors may post the Preprint of their Subscriber Access article on a website or on e.g. a Preprint Server at any time. Preprints may be assigned a CC-BY or equivalent license, with the original copyright holders retaining their copyright in the Preprint. Authors should take care that the distribution, sharing and/ repackaging of Preprints prior to submission of the article to an Inter-Research journal does not occur in a way that compromises the 'not previously published' requirement of manuscripts submitted to Inter-Research.

Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM)

Authors may post the AAM of their Subscriber Access article on a website or deposit it into an online Open Access or other repository any time after the manuscript is accepted for publication by Inter-Research. AAMs may be assigned a CC-BY or equivalent license, with the original copyright holders retaining their copyright in the AAM.

Version of Record (VoR)

Authors may post the VoR (final published PDF) of their Subscriber Access article on a website or deposit it into an online repository once the article becomes freely accessible from the IR website, 5 years after publication. At this time the VoR can be made openly accessible to all users from these platforms, but a CC-BY or equivalent License allowing free re-publication cannot be retrospectively applied to it.
 

The Author self-archiving policy relating to the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) for both Open Access and Subscriber Access articles complies with the Plan S Rights Retention Strategy, the funded research open access requirements of UKRI, Wellcome, and NIHR. Authors retain the right to distribute their Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM), such as via an institutional and/or subject repository (e.g. Europe PMC), under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

For AAMs and VoRs, the article on a website or in the repository must have a link to its abstract page on the Inter-Research website, and cite the Inter-Research-assigned article doi.

Summary of permitted self-archiving

Authors of studies originating from countries where limited funds are available for APCs can request to have the APC reduced. Applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis, and will require the provision to Inter-Research of specific funding and other resourcing information related to the study. In general a study must have been funded to at least 50% by a country eligible for the Research4Life program or classified by the World Bank as low or lower-middle income. A complete waiver of the APC is not available for journals where there is the option of publishing with Subscriber Access at no charge. Please apply to Feewaiver before submitting your manuscript.