UG sponsors S2O initiative White Horse Press

As of 2025, the UG became a subscribing member of White Horse Press, an independent, family-run academic publisher specialising in environmental humanities and social sciences. The membership package includes five journals: 

• Global Environment
• Nomadic Peoples
• Climates and Cultures in History
• Plant Perspectives
• Worldwide Waste

White Horse Press offers all five of these journals on a Subscribe to Open (S2O) basis. S2O is gaining traction as a pragmatic and simple approach for converting subscription journals to open access without reliance on author fees.

How does it work? 

If the set revenue target for the year for any given journal is reached, its volume for that year will become fully and permanently Open Access under a CC BY license. Should the revenue threshold not be reached, that year’s volume will remain gated (available to all those who subscribed, but not others). Author fees will only ever apply in cases where the journal remains gated, but the author nevertheless wishes to make their own article OA.

White Horse Press is a member of OASPA and of the Open Book Collective.

The UG is committed to supporting diamond OA and innovative business models for OA.