Responding to the recent agreement between UK universities and research institutions, and Elsevier on open access to their research portfolio, University Alliance CEO Vanessa Wilson said:
“University Alliance welcomes the news that UK universities and research institutions have reached an open access agreement with Elsevier following the sector’s acceptance of the latest proposal.
The agreement, which offers unlimited open access publishing and maintains read access, means that researchers from across our membership can publish open access across Elsevier’s full portfolio of journals including the Cell Press and Lancet titles.
The agreement meets the challenging objectives set by out the sector at the start of the negotiations: to deliver full and immediate open access, materially reduce costs to a sustainable, fair and reasonable level and deliver full compliance with UK funder policies. The savings will help our members respond to the multiple financial challenges they face and support their research ambitions.
As the largest open access agreement with UK institutions, this agreement represents a key milestone in the sector’s transition towards full and immediate open access to UK research; 80% of UK research output can now be published open access (versus a global average of 30%).
Open access to research has never been more important and we seek to build on our collective success in these negotiations to push for greater transparency and to challenge other major suppliers to deliver greater value to UK institutions.”
Jisc’s managing director of higher education and research, Liam Earney, said:
“We have achieved an outcome that meets the requirements of UK institutions. This is thanks to the hard work of the sector and the negotiations team and the strong partnership approach adopted throughout the process.
“This latest agreement meets all the core requirements of the sector and the contract has now been signed.
“This is the world’s largest Open Access (OA) agreement with Elsevier and is unique both in the level of savings and the access it delivers and is a major step in the transition towards full, equitable and affordable transition to open scholarship.
“The agreement provides unlimited and immediate open access to Elsevier ScienceDirect’s publications, as well as significant savings on total sector spend. This means that, alongside the sector’s other open access agreements, 80% of UK research can be made open access at no cost to authors.
“However, there is still much more work to be done and Jisc will continue to work with the sector through the negotiation of transitional and OA agreements which enable UK research output to be published OA in accordance with UK funder policies.”
