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  5. Finding open access content

Finding open access content

Open access content empowers you to explore a wealth of scholarly materials and information without the constraints of subscription fees or paywalls, ensuring that knowledge is accessible to everyone regardless of financial situations or institutional affiliations

The following list highlights some of the key open access tools and platforms that make knowledge readily available – no payment required.

Browser extensions

Browser extensions can be downloaded to enhance the function of your browser, working seamlessly in the background:

  • Lean Library: a browser extension that finds open access versions of articles, without any cost. See our advice on using Lean Library.
  • Unpaywall: automatically finds legal, open access versions of paywalled articles. Look for the green tab while browsing scholarly articles.

Open access repositories and databases

Platforms that provide open access to research outputs, often including datasets, articles, theses, books:

  • BioImage Archive: a public data resource that archives and makes available biological image data, of all scales, from molecules to entire organisms.
  • CogPrints: self-archived papers in psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy and biology.
  • CORE: a database of millions of open access research papers from repositories and journals worldwide. CORE is the world’s largest collection of open access research outputs.
  • Dimensions: a research database offering access to publications, datasets, grants and patents. Dimensions offers a free version for personal, non-commercial use.
  • Europe PMC: provides comprehensive access to life sciences literature from trusted sources.
  • Google Scholar: a freely accessible search engine for scholarly literature. Use the “All versions” link or PDF icons to locate open access copies.
  • IDEAS: a search tool to help you find and download papers from RePEc, which is an Economics database of over 3 million working papers, books, journal articles and software. Almost all the papers are freely available to read and download.
  • JSTOR (Open and free content): open access journals, ebooks, images and other media.
  • NERC Open Research Archive: the institutional repository for research publications and outcomes of staff at the British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, National Oceanography Centre and UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology.
  • OAPEN Library: a central repository for hosting and disseminating open access books.
  • PhilSci Archive: a repository for Philosophy of Science scholarly articles and monographs.
  • Project Gutenberg: a library of over 75,000 free ebooks, with focus on older works for which US copyright has expired.
  • PubMed Central: a free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature in the US National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine.
  • Research Data Leeds: a repository for open datasets produced by researchers at the University of Leeds.
  • White Rose Research Online: a shared repository for the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, offering access to research outputs from across disciplines.
  • Zenodo: an open access repository hosted by CERN. It includes preprints, journal articles, reports, datasets, software, presentations and other research outputs.

Open access directories

Indexes that provide information on open access tools or platforms:

  • Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books.
  • Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ): a global index of over 21,000 peer-reviewed open access journals across all disciplines. DOAJ ensures quality through rigorous inclusion criteria and supports discoverability of scholarly content.
  • Open Access Directory (OAD): an extensive list of OA disciplinary repositories or subject repositories is available via the Open Access Directory (OAD) site.
  • OpenDOAR: a global directory of academic open access repositories. Use it to locate institutional and subject-specific repositories.

Open access publishing platforms

Platforms combining publication and peer review:

  • F1000 Research: an open publishing platform that also uses a transparent peer review process. Any researcher can upload their research outputs to the platform.
  • PLOS (Public Library of Science): a nonprofit open access publisher with journals covering life sciences, medicine, sustainability and more. PLOS champions open science and rigorous peer review.
  • Wellcome Open Research: a platform for Wellcome-funded researchers to share research (including data, research findings, protocols and case reports). Papers undergo an open peer review process after they are posted to the platform, with all peer review comments being freely accessible to all users.

Pre-print servers 

Platforms for sharing and accessing early versions of research papers before peer review:

  • arXiv: a preprint server for physics, mathematics, computer science and related fields. Widely used for early dissemination of research.
  • bioRxiv: a preprint repository for the life sciences.
  • PhilArchive: the largest open access e-print archive in philosophy. Formerly known as the PhilPapers Archive, it is built on and integrated with the PhilPapers database.
  • Semantic Scholar: an AI-powered search engine for scholarly literature. You can filter search results to show only open access papers. Articles with freely available fulltexts often include a direct “PDF” button or link.
  • SocArXiv: an archive of the social sciences, provides a free, nonprofit, open access platform for social scientists to upload working papers, preprints and published papers, with the option to link data and code.  
  • SSRN: a multidisciplinary repository of working papers and preprints owned by the publisher Elsevier. Most papers can be downloaded free of charge.
  • OSF Preprints: a multidisciplinary preprint platform hosted by the Center for Open Science. Supports transparency and early sharing of research.

Wikimedia Ecosystem

Community-driven platforms for sharing general and scholarly knowledge:

  • The Wikipedia Library: a database of journals which is available for editors who meet certain criteria.
  • Wikimedia Commons: an open repository for images and files, all available free of charge.
  • Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia anyone can edit. It exists in over 340 languages and contains openly accessible information for everyone globally.
  • Wikisource: a free library for open access texts and textbooks in multiple languages.