Open-access (OA) publications are peer-reviewed research articles that are accessible online to any reader without requiring a journal subscription or payment. These publications allow global researchers and other readers access to scientific research and have reshaped the structure of scientific publishing. Government and private funders, institutions, and scientists themselves are increasingly concerned with the availability of S&E publications through OA sources, with some funders requiring grantees to publish their results in OA journals. This InfoBrief explores global patterns of OA publication output and scientific impact from 2003 through 2022 using Scopus, a bibliometric database of publication metadata, which includes the OA status of research publications.
