The Fair Open Access Principles

The Fair Open Access Principles, established by the Fair Open Access Alliance (FOAA), delineate five core criteria for truly open scholarly publishing. First, journals must be transparently owned and governed by the scholarly community—ideally as nonprofit entities with democratic decision‑making—ensuring service providers compete on quality without controlling the title. Second, authors retain copyright, and journals may offer legal support services under authors’ oversight; reviewers are likewise encouraged to keep copyright over their reports. Third, all content must be immediately open access under an explicit licence (preferably CC‑BY), with no subscription or hybrid paywalls. Fourth, neither submission nor publication may depend on author fees or institutional membership; instead, journals should be funded by untied institutional or funder contributions, allowing voluntary, unobtrusive article‑processing charges only on an opt‑in basis. Finally, any operational fees must be low, transparent, and proportional—recommended at no more than USD 50 per page or USD 1 000 per article.