The importance of Open Access for science cannot be emphasized enough, as it increases the accessibility of our research to both the public and institutions without journal subscriptions. My institution has a Read & Publish agreement with The Company of Biologists, and opting for Open Access publication not only incurred no cost in terms of our research funds but was also very easy to apply for in their application system. Such Open Access agreements between journals and institutions are a great step forward towards making science accessible to all – researchers and readers alike.
We at the MPDL are delighted to extend our collaboration with The Company of Biologists, which means we can continue to offer our researchers the possibility to publish open access in all the publisher’s journals as well as access to all previously published content. Providing these opportunities to our authors is at the heart of our overall strategy in the world of scholarly publishing, in line with the Max Planck Society’s vision of openness, which in turn reflects the principles of the OA2020 Initiative and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access.
In our role as the German Information Center for Life Sciences, ZB Med is strongly invested in helping German life scientists publish their work Open Access in an affordable yet highly professional environment. Focusing on Open Access and transformative agreements for German Life Sciences, we invite all interested German academic and research institutions and hospitals to join this consortium agreement with The Company of Biologists to take advantage of this non-APC based, uncapped author publishing opportunity.
More than for any of our other papers, we wanted to be sure the data in this paper was accessible to everyone in the community. We were delighted to learn that Johns Hopkins has a fee-free Open Access agreement with The Company of Biologists. Otherwise, we would have struggled with the decision of whether to pay the traditional Open Access fees.
I was delighted to be able to make use of a Read & Publish agreement to make our work available Open Access in Journal of Experimental Biology (JEB). All of the authors on our team value Open Access, but because we didn’t have specific dedicated funds for this project, we wouldn’t have been able to publish our work Open Access if not for the Read & Publish agreement. I also really value how easy the process was—no onerous paperwork—which I think really helps encourage authors to make use of this service. I have always felt that the publishing process at JEB was one of the most painless and author-friendly of any journal, and having the ability to publish Open Access so easily has cemented that view in my mind. Publishing in The Company of Biologists’ journals is a model of what Open Access publishing should be.
Really delighted about our recent paper in DMM, and was great news that we were able to publish without having to pay an Open Access fee thanks to a Read & Publish agreement with our university.
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.
We are glad that corresponding authors from EIFL partner countries will be able to publish Open Access in all The Company of Biologists’ journals. We value the partnership with the Company and welcome the extension of the agreement for three more years for free access and publishing for 30 EIFL partner countries.
The free Open Access option proved the optimal choice, not just by simplifying the process but also by granting us publication in a prestigious journal like Development, all without the usual financial burden. This is truly a game-changer for science publishing. This sets a powerful precedent for a more equitable and accessible scientific publishing landscape. I hope more journals adopt this model, paving the way for a future where Open Access becomes the norm.
I am extremely happy to publish our work Open Access. It is so important to ensure that we can share our peer reviewed work and make it as widely available as possible. We are grateful to The Company of Biologists and Imperial College London for making this possible through their Read & Publish agreement and couldn’t recommend highly enough publishing in Development. The process was seamless, and it is one of the things I feel proudest of in my career.