The most extensive UK transitional agreement to date accelerates open access publishing and expands access to one of the most substantial collections of scholarly content.
Jisc, the UK’s research and education not-for-profit that negotiates licences and digital content agreements on behalf of UK universities, and Wiley, a global leader in research and education, have struck a four year “read and publish” agreement that offers researchers at UK universities open access (OA) publishing in all Wiley journals at no cost to them.
As part of the new agreement, the proportion of OA articles published by UK researchers will increase from 27% to an estimated 85% in year one, with the potential to reach 100% by 2022. The agreement will also enable institutions and their users to access all of Wiley’s journals.
Liam Earney, executive director for digital resources at Jisc, says: “This new agreement is a step-change in the transition to open access to UK research. This agreement offers all universities within the consortium, regardless of how much or little they publish, an opportunity to rapidly transition toward full and immediate open access in a financially sustainable way. But it also recognises the importance of access to research materials for students and researchers generally, enabling all universities to access more Wiley content than before.”
Judy Verses, Executive Vice President, Wiley Research adds: “We are proud to have supported an OA model with Jisc over the past 5 years in the UK, which is a global leader in driving the transition to open access. By reaching this agreement, Wiley will further accelerate OA in the UK, reinforcing our commitment to keeping our customers at the center of what we do.”
This ground-breaking agreement will enable institutions to control the costs of access and OA publishing. It will also support a simplified process for authors and their institutions, enabling compliance with funder mandates and Plan S.
The agreement begins in March 2020, and all participating Jisc member institutions and affiliated researchers are eligible. The contract will be made publicly available 31 March, 2020.
