Over the last 12 months, UK Universities have been working with Jisc to negotiate a new deal with Elsevier. The aim was to reduce subscription costs and to provide full and immediate open access to UK research.

On 23 March 2022, a new three-year contract was agreed. The deal, which is the world’s largest open access deal with Elsevier, has successfully secured a cost reduction for the entire UK sector. Subscription costs have been reduced to sustainable levels, whilst supporting a transition to full and immediate open access publishing in Elsevier, Cell Press and The Lancet journals.

The Elsevier agreement in context

Over 50% of all UK research output is now covered by a Jisc-negotiated transitional agreement, and more information on how these are achieved is available on the Jisc website.

This deal marks an exciting development in the ways the sector can come together to negotiate open access agreements with publishers, from large and small commercials to not-for-profit societies.

What does this mean for University of Nottingham authors?

Authors will see some changes to how you publish in Elsevier journals.

Subscription journals – Authors have the option to publish open access without paying separate article processing charges (APCs).

Fully open access journals – An APC still applies but it will be discounted. A price cap also applies to the annual increment some of those journals can charge on those APCs.

Josh Sendall, Associate Director for Research, at UoN Libraries said:

“This is a positive outcome and a significant step towards making our research freely and openly available.

“Reaching this result took significant and sustained planning and negotiations – it demonstrates that when we work together as one sector, we can achieve our goals.”

For more details on publishing, visit the Libraries Transformative Agreements webpage.