Annual Reviews

Background: In 1930, a chemistry professor at Stanford University had the idea of saving scientists time by publishing an annual volume of critical reviews on research of the preceding year. Annual Reviews was established as a nonprofit organization in 1932.

Mission: As a nonprofit publisher, Annual Reviews is dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society. It now publishes 51 review journals, each one covering a different discipline in the biomedical, life, social and physical sciences. In 2023, all of the journals are being published open access using the Subscribe to Open (S2O) model, making the content free to readers everywhere.

Community over Commercialization:

“All the valid scientific information should be available in the public arena. Policymakers, corporate leaders, climate change activists and human rights campaigners all should have access to the scientific understanding of climate change and the impact of a biased criminal justice system, for example. In almost every area that we cover, there's potential societal benefit from our content being open access.”

“Annual Reviews’ approach to open access has been very much a community collaboration. The librarians that subscribe to our journals have understood the benefits and why we needed to develop Subscribe to Open, and have fully supported us.”

“There is nothing that we publish that doesn’t have some practical application. The reviews each summarize a vast body of work, and point to unanswered questions, opportunities and the research agenda of the future.”

“Especially today, the research enterprise can’t only be inward looking. We need its knowledge to make the right decisions, and to counteract the misinformation and disinformation of naysayers.”

-Richard Gallagher, and editor-in-chief, Annual Reviews