What is open access?
For scholarly work, open access means making all scholarly outputs freely available via the Internet, permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any lawful purpose, without financial, legal or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.
Reference: https://aoasg.org.au/what-is-open-access/
Basically, you can use these resources without having to seek permission from the author.
Please note that you will still need to provide appropriate references for any material you use.
Where can I find open access resources?
Look for these symbols:

We have sourced and consolidated a number of prestigious open access resources below. Each of these sources has its own search functions and filters so that you can easily look for the right information.
Prestigious Open Access Publishers and Directories
Below is a list of international publishers, as well as well-known directories, that provide open access journals.
Click on the logos to go to the websites.
SAGE is an international, leading publisher of 70 titles in Engineering, Materials Science and Computing. The collection includes the 18 journals of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers alongside other essential research from a diverse range of subjects including rehabilitation and assistive technologies, mechanical engineering and polymer materials. The collection now features the leading open access journal in its field, Advances in Mechanical Engineering.
Browse a list of journals by selecting a discipline and/or subject. Use the A-Z option to filter journals beginning with that letter. You can also add journals to your favourites or set up email alerts for new content by selecting the journal tick box and clicking the corresponding button.
All articles in these open access journals published by Elsevier have undergone peer review and upon acceptance are immediately and permanently free to read and download.
“We publish more than 30 open access Journals in Engineering, ranging from Civil and Mechanical Engineering to Robotics and Transportation to name a few. Publishing with SpringerOpen makes your work freely available online for everyone, immediately upon publication, and our high-level peer-review and production processes guarantee the quality and reliability of the work.”
“From foundational science to new and novel research, discover our large collection of Physical Sciences and Engineering publications, covering a range of disciplines, from the theoretical to the applied.”
On the left, filter journals by ‘open access’.
IEEE Access® is a multidisciplinary, applications-oriented, all-electronic archival journal that continuously presents the results of original research or development across all of IEEE’s fields of interest. Supported by author publication fees, its hallmarks are a rapid peer review and publication process with open access to all readers.
This journal is 100% open access. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, as long as proper attribution is given.
Taylor & Francis publish high quality, rigorously peer-reviewed open access research across all disciplines. Scroll to the bottom to filter your search by discipline. You can then filter by engineering field, e.g. mechanical engineering, by using the filters on the left.
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. DOAJ is independent. Check out the website and browse by subject area to view their array of technology and engineering collections.
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute launched in 1996 as a non-profit institute for the promotion and preservation of the diversity of chemical compounds. MDPI published journals are fully open access: research articles, reviews or any other content on this platform is available to everyone free of charge.
Additional Open Access Directories
Below is a list of additional publishers of open access resources.
Textbooks in the Open Textbook Library are considered open because they are free to use and distribute, and are licensed to be freely adapted or changed with proper attribution. Open textbooks are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted. From the homepage, browse by subject to view the engineering collection.
This Living Library is a principal hub of the LibreTexts project, which is a multi-institutional collaborative venture to develop the next generation of open-access texts to improve postsecondary education at all levels of higher learning.
MATEC Web of Conferences is an Open Access publication series dedicated to archiving conference proceedings dealing with all fundamental and applied research aspects related to Materials science, Engineering and Chemistry.
The International Academy for Science & Technology Education and Research strives to promote the rapid dissemination of knowledge within the scientific community and in the public, and to aid in the advancements of science and technology by organizing thematic conferences on modern technological themes, organizing workshops on modern science and engineering topics and publishing highly technical journals.
With almost 5,000 open access books, Intech Open offers open access content across a range of scientific topics, including over 800 peer-reviewed engineering books.
Scientific Research Publishing is one of the largest open access journal publishers. It is currently publishing more than 200 open access, online, peer-reviewed journals covering a wide range of academic disciplines.
The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. Our international, peer reviewed journals publish high quality science and provide an excellent service to our authors and readers.
The Science Publishing Group is an international publisher of journals, special issues, books and conferences, covering a wide range of academic disciplines, including chemical engineering, civil engineering, materials science, mathematics and statistics, electrical and computer science, and technology.
The International Association of Engineering and Management Education (IAEME) is a non-profit international association for the Engineering and management education. IAEME was found by a group of engineers and management professions in 2009. IAEME publish various journals in Science, Engineering, Technology and Management.
The Indian Journal of Science and Technology is an open-access journal publishing full-length research papers and review articles covering subjects that fall under the wide spectrum of science and technology. The journal is dedicated towards dissemination of knowledge related to the advancement in scientific research.
IOPscience is an online service for journal content published by IOP Publishing. IOPscience embraces innovative technologies to make it easier for researchers to access scientific, technical and medical content.
BENTHAM Open publishes a number of peer-reviewed, open access journals. These free-to-view online journals cover all major disciplines of science, medicine, technology and social sciences.
SciELO is a bibliographic database, digital library, and cooperative electronic publishing model of open access journals. You can search their site to access dozens of international engineering journals.
Hindawi Publishing Corporation is a commercial publisher of scientific, technical, and medical literature. Founded in 1997, Hindawi currently publishes more than 230 peer-reviewed scientific journals as well as a number of scholarly monographs, with an annual output of roughly 20,000 articles each year.
David Publishing Company is a professional English-language academic journals and books publisher both in print and online versions, which serves the world’s research and scholarly communities. STEM is our core theme.
This organisation was established in 2007 with the sole aim of providing a platform for “Open Access” to the research information pertaining to diversified fields of science and technology.
Established in 2005, Insight Medical Publishing (iMedPub) is a comprehensive destination for the latest discoveries in the science, technology, medicine, and engineering fields.
Open Access and Paid Journals by Discipline:
Our internal academics staff have worked have compiled a list of high-impact factor journals relevant to each discipline – Mechanical, Civil and Structural, Industrial Automation, and Electrical. Not all journals within these lists are fully open access, however some do contain open access articles.
Click on the respective image for further information.
SCImago:
The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a publicly available portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators. These indicators can be used to assess and analyse scientific domains.
Head to the SCImago website for information on thousands of journals. You can also filter by open access.
Last modified: Wednesday, 22 October 2025, 12:24 AM































