Elsevier and Jisc sign three-year agreement

Elsevier has signed a transitional agreement with Jisc – the negotiating body representing UK academic research institutions – to provide access to global research for UK readers, and to provide immediate open access to UK research for the world.

The three-year agreement is aimed at meeting the sector’s goals to rapidly transition to open access, at reduced costs relative to what the sector is paying today. The agreement reflects the start of a partnership and collaboration with Elsevier and UK institutions to deliver the largest agreement of its kind globally. The agreement will enable authors at Jisc - UK institutions to publish immediate open access across all Elsevier journals.

UK researchers will also be able to continue to read Elsevier’s portfolio of journals. The parties say the agreement recognises the significant investment the UK has already made in its transition to open access over the last five years, and the challenges the UK higher education sector is facing.

Gemma Hersh, SVP for global academic and government sales at Elsevier, said: 'Elsevier is proud to continue to support the UK’s world class research community. This agreement is a significant step towards a sustainable transition to immediate open access for UK research that supports authors in sharing their work and enables researchers to read the high quality, trusted research published in Elsevier journals. We appreciate the challenges the UK institutions face, especially because of the pandemic, and worked collaboratively with Jisc to create a tailored agreement which meets all the requirements set out on behalf of the sector.'

Nearly all of Elsevier's 2,700 journals enable open access publishing, including 600 fully open access journals.

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 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 per cent 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.'