Open Access agreement between The Company of Biologists and University of California continues for an additional three years
20 September 2024
The Company of Biologists is delighted to announce a further three-year Open Access agreement with the University of California (UC).
This agreement, which follows on from the initial 3-year variation agreement, runs from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2026 and continues to cover Open Access publishing in The Company of Biologists’ journals: Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open.
The agreement enables corresponding authors at all ten UC campuses to publish an uncapped number of research articles immediately Open Access. The agreement also provides researchers on all UC campuses with unlimited access to Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology and their archives dating back to 1853.
Under the agreement, the UC libraries will automatically pay the first $1,000 of a discounted Open Access fee, or Article Processing Charge (APC), for all UC authors who choose to publish in one of The Company of Biologists’ journals. Authors are asked to pay the remainder if they have research funds available to do so. Authors who do not have research funds available can request full funding of the APC from the libraries. This ensures that lack of research funds does not present a barrier for UC authors who wish to publish Open Access in The Company of Biologists’ journals.
Rich Schneider, PhD, Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, University of California at San Francisco, says:
“I’m thrilled that the University of California has renewed its transformative Open Access agreement with The Company of Biologists, a mission-driven, community-led publisher that shares UC’s goal of making the scholarly publishing landscape more open. I was a member of the team that negotiated the first Open Access agreement between UC and The Company of Biologists. I have been an author with The Company of Biologists for more than 20 years, and since the start of UC’s partnership with the Company in 2021, UC authors have published more than 85 Open Access articles in its journals, increasing the visibility and impact of their research. I hope that even more UC authors will take advantage of this renewed agreement and make their scholarship freely available to researchers and anyone else around the world by publishing Open Access in The Company of Biologists’ journals.”
Shelly Turner, Head of Sales and Business Development at The Company of Biologists, says:
“We are delighted to continue our Open Access collaboration with the UC libraries helping to create a sustainable and inclusive path to OA publishing and look forward to working together to promote the growth of Open Access publishing in the biological and biomedical sciences.”
View current participating institutions
About the University of California Libraries and Open Access at UC:
Individually and collectively, the University of California libraries provide access to the world’s knowledge for the UC campuses and the communities they serve, directly supporting UC’s missions of teaching, research, and public service. Open Access publishing supports the mission of the University of California by transmitting knowledge more broadly and facilitating new discoveries that build on the university’s research and scholarly work. UC generates nearly 10 percent of all research output in the United States; half of which is eligible for open access publishing under one of the university’s 17 transformative agreements. Learn more about Open Access at UC.
About The Company of Biologists
The Company of Biologists is a not-for-profit publishing organisation dedicated to supporting and inspiring the biological community. We partner with libraries and library consortia to enable biologists worldwide to access our leading peer-reviewed hybrid journals — Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology — and our fully OA journals — Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open.
We also have a long-standing and ongoing commitment to Open Access. Our cost-neutral Read & Publish initiative enables corresponding authors at participating institutions to publish an uncapped number of OA research articles in our hybrid journals and our two fully OA journals — without paying an Article Processing Charge (APC). We were the first not-for-profit publisher to commit to the Transformative Journal approach and our journals were the first to be awarded Transformative Journal status by Plan S. Over 850 institutions in 51 countries are now participating in our cost neutral Read & Publish OA initiative. We also have Read & Publish agreements with many library consortia.
Learn more about our new bio-positive publishing initiative, The Forest of Biologists.
