Routes to open access: fully open access agreements

With established publishers our agreements seek cost savings and workflow efficiencies. Agreements with new publishers allow institutions to support and promote alternative and innovative publication venues and formats.

Current fully open access agreements

Subscribe to Open (S2O)

As open access via S2O depends on participation by enough institutions to reach a subscription target, agreements must also include a compliant green option for funded authors.

Current subscribe to open agreements

Open access community framework

The open access community framework (OACF) was launched in 2022 as a new approach to supporting publishers or initiatives operating under the diamond open access (OA) model – open access publishing with no subscription or author facing fee – which is a competitive and sustainable alternative to the book processing charge (BPC) model.

Open access community framework (OACF) 2023

Following on from the success of last year’s pilot scheme, the aim in 2023 was to support new university, library led and community-based monograph publishers. We restricted applications to monographs and books in series to align it with the strategic objectives of sector libraries and the new UKRI open access policy for monographs, which commences in January 2024.

We have selected the following three initiatives for 2023, and institutions can support them for the three year period 2023 to 2025:

All three publishers also participated in the pilot scheme last year and so it is fantastic to see how the OACF is meeting their needs in producing additional content and gaining support from within the sector to further disseminate key humanities research.

We hope that institutions are able to support these three OACF initiatives which will help to consolidate and grow a thriving diverse number of agreements with small university, library led and non-commercial presses as an alternative to the large commercial presses.

Participate in the open access community framework

We are pausing the OACF during 2024 to review progress and plan for the future.

Publishers wishing to participate in the open access community framework (OACF) should  follow instructions in the submission form (.docx).

OACF agreements awarded in 2022

Other community-based agreements

Our agreements based on a collective action/supporter membership model enable institutions to support the running costs of infrastructure and disciplinary tools, investing in new open access platforms and initiatives for the benefit of the whole scholarly community.

Current community-based agreements

Open access monograph agreements

To support the UKRI open access policy requirements for longform publications, we have negotiated a growing number of agreements in which members can participate.

We seek equitable, inclusive, fair and affordable agreements with academic book publishers. Negotiation of agreements with smaller academic led presses, independent publishers and aggregators will be prioritised. These agreements will create an alternative to the book processing charge (BPC) model, which is expensive and not scalable.

Current OA monograph agreement

Routes to open access