Open Access Week 2026: The Cost of Knowledge
How much does it cost to make scientific knowledge open and accessible?
This year’s International Open Access Week, October 19–25, asks us to consider exactly that. The 2026 theme, “The Cost of Knowledge,” challenges us to examine why the costs of accessing and sharing knowledge continue to rise, who benefits from those costs, and how increasing consolidation and commercial control of scholarly knowledge affect the public good. These costs extend beyond rising journal subscriptions and article processing charges to include the unpaid labor of authors and reviewers, inequities in who can participate in scholarly publishing, the commercial use of research for AI, as well as the mounting environmental impact of the infrastructure that supports it. At Stanford, we have put some numbers behind that question.
Open Access Has a Cost
Open access removes barriers for readers, but publishing an article openly can still carry a substantial cost for authors.
Article Processing Charges (APCs) can range from a few hundred dollars to more than $11,000. Stanford, like most universities, does not have a general fund that pays open access publishing fees for all authors.
A RIALTO study of Stanford publication data from 2018–2023 estimated:
- $8.38 million in APC costs per year for Stanford-affiliated publications
- $41.9 million in estimated APC costs over five years
- 68% of Stanford Medicine publications were open access
Those numbers illustrate an important challenge: How do we continue making research openly available without placing an increasing financial burden on researchers?
Lane Library Is Working to Reduce the Cost of Open Access
One answer is through Read and Publish agreements.
Lane Medical Library works with publishers to negotiate agreements that combine access to journal content with open access publishing benefits for the School of Medicine community. Depending on the agreement, eligible Stanford authors may have their APC fully covered or substantially discounted.
Recently, Lane Library announced additional agreements with Elsevier ScienceDirect, BMJ, and Wolters Kluwer (Lippincott) that cover 100% of APC costs for eligible corresponding authors in participating journals. From January through September 2026, Stanford authors published a total of 345 articles through Lane Library’s publisher agreements. You can discover all Lane Library’s agreements on our open access guide. Reach out to your liaison librarian with any questions or for help selecting an open access journal.
Moving forward means building systems that treat knowledge as a public good while making open scholarship more sustainable and equitable. Open Access Week is an opportunity to consider how libraries, researchers, universities, funders, and publishers can work together to reduce barriers to open access, rethink costs on a holistic scale, and create more sustainable ways to share research with everyone.
