Imperial College London and University of Sheffield partner with eLife
eLife has announced partnerships with Imperial College London and the University of Sheffield, UK, on its uncapped scheme that it says “promotes greater equity, inclusivity and sustainability in scientific publishing”.
The partnerships come after the nonprofit introduced uncapped and centralised schemes to help institutions support their researchers in publishing, and to help transition away from traditional author fees. Imperial College London and the University of Sheffield follow the MIT Libraries as eLife’s first adopter of the two-year uncapped scheme, with the agreements running until summer 2027.
Alessio Bolognesi, eLife Head of Publishing Development, says: “There is growing support for open science among the research community, which we’ve seen first hand in conversations with Imperial College London, the University of Sheffield and other institutions globally. We’re delighted to partner with these two leading universities as we continue to promote our model as a fairer and more transparent approach to research publishing and assessment.”
The University of Sheffield expressed a commitment to supporting alternatives to the traditional publishing system. The outputs of the model are “reviewed preprints” that include the article, public reviews and an eLife assessment – designed to emphasise the scientific content of individual articles rather than journal name or journal-level metrics.
As signatories of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, eLife, Imperial College London and the University of Sheffield share a common view that journal-level metrics should be avoided in favour of more effective methods of research assessment.
Peter Barr, Head of Content & Collections at the University of Sheffield Library, says: “Through our Comprehensive Content Strategy, the University of Sheffield is committed to the equitable transformation of scholarly communications by investing in alternative approaches to the dissemination of research. The eLife Model represents such an approach offering a direct and practical solution for our researchers to try its innovative route to publication.”
Ruth Harrison, Head of Scholarly Communications Management, Library Services, at Imperial College London, adds: “We want to be able to support a variety of publishing models to better enable access to research, and create more equitable paths to publishing for all authors. This agreement means our authors can be part of eLife’s publishing programme at no additional cost to them, and that we welcome different routes for the communication of research.”
“It’s wonderful to welcome Imperial College London and the University of Sheffield on board, and we hope to see many more forward-thinking organisations join them over the coming months,” said eLife Head of Publishing Fiona Hutton. “Their support is invaluable to our mission as we continue working with the community to reform research publishing and assessment for all.”