Read & Publish Open Access agreements
1,000 institutions in 53 countries are participating in our cost-neutral Read & Publish initiative and we have had great feedback from librarians, library consortia and authors.
We have also signed Read & Publish and other transformative Open Access agreements with many library consortia.
What do Read & Publish agreements offer?
Read & Publish agreements offer many benefits to libraries and researchers.
Key benefits:
- uncapped fee-free publishing of Open Access research articles for all corresponding authors under CC BY licence terms, with authors retaining copyright in our transformative journals plus our Open Access journals – Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open
- unlimited access to our three transformative journals – Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology – including the full archive dating back to 1853 (even if your library does not currently subscribe to them all)
- transparent cost-neutral pricing calculated on the basis of current subscription spend plus the annual average APC spend (if any) over the last three years
- reduces admin – one annual fee covers reading and uncapped publishing so there are no separate APCs to pay
- multi-year capped pricing options are available
- switching from a subscription to a Read & Publish agreement is straightforward and seamless:
- automatic recognition of corresponding authors and straightforward submission process
- touch-free workflow can be enabled to streamline the APC payment and funding process automatic approvals can be set up so that all funding requests will be automatically approved. Transaction reports can be automated and set at regular intervals
- compliant with funder mandates including Plan S
In addition, ready-made resources are available to help to promote the agreement to researchers and users:
Quick links to further information:
Pricing and licensing
Pricing for Read & Publish agreements is calculated on the basis of current subscription spend plus the annual average APC spend (if any) over the last three years.
A sample Read & Publish institutional agreement is available here.
Library toolkit
An expanding range of resources – including posters, social media graphics and website banners – is available to help librarians at participating institutions inform researchers about the ways in which Read & Publish agreements will benefit them.
What do librarians say?
Kyle Brady, Scholarly Communications Manager, Digital Research, Research and Innovation Services, University of St Andrews, UK:
By signing up to The Company of Biologists’ Read and Publish deal we are now able to increase the quantity of OA articles authored by our researchers in the biological sciences, and at the same time reduce the admin burden by simplifying the OA ordering process.
Rachelle M. McLain, Collection Development Librarian, Montana State University, USA:
MSU Library’s Read & Publish agreement with The Company of Biologists will further advance open access research and scholarship at MSU. This is important because it means the work of MSU-affiliated authors who are publishing in their journals will be available to a larger audience because it is not behind the barrier of an online paywall.
