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UK universities have reached a three-year agreement with Elsevier providing both unlimited open access (OA) publishing in hybrid journals and access to paywalled journal articles for a significant reduction on current institutional spend. 

This agreement meets all the core requirements of the sector and 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, it is recognised that there is a need for further work towards a sustainable and equitable open access landscape; 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.

Access to over 2259 Elsevier ScienceDirect journals that the university subscribes to remains through Primo.

University of Aberdeen corresponding authors will be offered the chance to publish open access at no cost in participating subscription journals and a discount will be available for fully open access titles. Please see our open access webpages for further information.

We have recently been made aware that Elsevier have written directly to their editors in connection with the UKRI review of their Open Access policy. The message relays concerns that Elsevier have about the impact of UKRI’s proposed open access policy. Although the policy has not yet been confirmed, Elsevier have concerns that the new policy may be potentially harmful to open access, limiting researchers’ options on funder compliant open access and freedom to publish, and could have an adverse effect on journal business models.

These are the issues the HE sector seeks to avoid through a negotiated read and publish agreement with Elsevier.  Our objective remains to reach an agreement that complies with UKRI policy.

• In summary, through the ongoing negotiations, the sector seeks:
  • 100% of UK corresponding author output to be published immediately OA in all subscription titles (aligned with UKRI objectives).
  • To reduce and constrain costs with subscriptions titles: achieving a reduction in expenditure with Elsevier to levels which universities can sustain.
  • To build confidence that the charges with Elsevier are fair and reasonable.
  • To deliver full compliance with funder policies and improvements in service.

The national HE negotiating team and Elsevier continue to work together to reach an affordable agreement that meets our objectives. If such a deal is not achieved, immediate open access of author accepted manuscripts through deposit in repositories, without embargo, is an alternative way to comply with UKRI expectations, should this requirement be confirmed in their new policy. It will be straightforward, have no impact on academic freedom and will be fully supported by the Library’s Scholarly Communications Service. The viability of this route to open access has been comprehensively explored over several years, and a number of publishers already offer it.

Simon Bains, University Librarian, sits on the UUK/Jisc Content Negotiation Strategy Group and is very happy to hear views and questions, please get in touch if you have any queries.