Editorial

The International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health (IJAMH) looks forward to a new beginning in a number of ways at the end of 2024. Since January 2022, we have successively renewed the Editorial Board and are now pleased to announce that the Society for Transition Medicine (Gesellschaft für Transitionsmedizin e.V, GfTM) has chosen the journal as its official publication.

Our mission is to enhance the health and well-being of all individuals during adolescence. To achieve this, we aim not only to publish research that supports their healthy growth and development but also to empower young people with chronic conditions and special health needs to successfully transition from pediatric to adult care. Starting in 2025, the journal will feature a dedicated section “Transitions in Medicine and Health Care”, focusing on this important topic. The editorial team eagerly anticipates submissions in this area!

Starting 2025, the IJAMH will be transferred to Diamond Open Access on a year-by-year basis. All articles will thus immediately appear under the Creative Commons license CC-BY at no publication costs for the authors. The Open Access transformation is based on Subscribe-to-Open (S2O), an alternative, sustainable and equitable approach to transitioning subscription-based journals into Open Access, one year at a time, through the continuation of existing subscriptions. The prerequisite for successful transformation is that subscriptions are continued to the same extent as before.

The publisher De Gruyter started a pilot project in 2020/2021, the beginning of a success story. The portfolio currently comprises 21 titles, with plans to transfer a further 37 journals to the S2O program by 2025 and up to 90 % of the journal portfolio by 2028. Subscribe to Open was developed by the US-based publisher Annual Reviews in 2019. Since then, an increasing number of publishers and libraries have embraced S2O and come together in the Community of Practice.

With S2O, we not only aim to overcome barriers for authors who may not have the means to pay article processing fees, but also for our readers all over the world. The initial analyses of journals already running under the S2O model indicate that the Open Access articles published receive up to 7 times higher usage than the articles that were published behind the paywall and the number of countries from which content is accessed has grown massively. In this way, our authors’ works is expected to reach a wider readership, increased visibility, and overall impact. The editors of the International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health and the publisher De Gruyter would therefore like to thank all subscribers for their support, to make the transformation to Open Access possible.

You can easily support the S20 model of the IJAMH by renewing your existing subscription in the usual way or reaching out to your librarian and recommend a subscription for 2025. Further information can be found on the De Gruyter website. If you have any questions, please contact Senior Manager Open Research Strategy Dr. Christina Lembrecht (Christina.Lembrecht@degruyter.com).