The Company of Biologists renews Read & Publish agreement with The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and expands Open Access publishing opportunities

14 December 2023

The Company of Biologists is delighted to announce the renewal and expansion of our Read & Publish Open Access agreement with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) from 2024-2026.

From 2024, corresponding authors at more than 100 CSIC research institutes will now benefit from publishing an uncapped number of accepted Open Access research articles in our two fully Open Access journals – Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open, in addition to our hybrid journals, Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology – without paying an article processing charge (APC). Researchers at participating institutions also benefit from unlimited access to the journals and their archives dating back to 1853.

Agnès Ponsati, Director of the Scientific Information Resources Unit (URICI), Spanish National Research Council, says:

“In 2021, CSIC signed a transformative agreement with The Company of Biologists that supported the publisher’s transition to Read & Publish models. URICI, in its strategy of promoting open access to research outputs, has followed the path of collaborating in this transition with both large publishers and smaller ones, such as The Company of Biologists. In the renewal of this agreement for 2024, the step is taken to also incorporate two fully Open Access journals, since they have been shown to be of great interest among the CSIC’s biology community.”

Rich Blount, Regional Sales Manager at The Company of Biologists, says:

“We are delighted that our continuing partnership with CSIC has enabled us to expand the number of journals from three to five from 2024, which will in turn offer more opportunities for authors in over 100 CSIC research institutes to submit fee-free Open Access articles.”

About the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
The Spanish National Research Council is the main agent responsible for implementing the Spanish System for Science, Technology and Innovation. It is part of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. CSIC’s mission is to promote, coordinate, develop and disseminate scientific and technological multidisciplinary research, in order to contribute to the progress of knowledge and economic, social and cultural development; as well as to train researchers and provide advice to public and private entities in these fields.

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.

We 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 – Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open – 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 700 institutions in 42 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.