Next generation open access

Resetting the UK’s open access agreements to achieve greater equity, inclusivity and financial sustainability.

About the negotiations

In March 2025, the UK higher education and research sector, in collaboration with Jisc, will enter negotiations with Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Wiley and Sage. These negotiations aim to secure fair, equitable and sustainable agreements that meet the evolving needs of UK universities and the research community.

The next generation open access programme drives these negotiations, accelerating the transition to a more sustainable and inclusive publishing models. It’s two overarching goals are:

  1. Achieving cost savings and long-term financial sustainability by securing agreements that reflect the sector’s financial realities
  2. Broadening participation in research by promoting equity and inclusivity in research dissemination

Next generation open access

The programme supports the negotiations by providing a clear framework to:

  • Address financial pressures by securing affordable agreements with the sector’s top five publishers
  • Advance open research by transitioning to innovative, non-volume-based models
  • Promote equity and inclusivity by ensuring agreements support a diverse range of research disciplines and communities

By aligning its goals with the sector’s priorities, the programme ensures that these negotiations foster innovation, equity and collaboration. This supports the UK government’s objectives to enhance research partnerships, achieve efficiencies and maximise societal impact.

The financial and systemic challenges

The sector faces significant financial pressures despite strong support for open access. UK universities currently spend approximately £112 million annually on Jisc negotiated agreements with the five largest publishers.

Current publishing models based on article processing charges and volume-driven approaches often exclude key groups such as independent researchers and underfunded regions or institutions, while prioritising journal output and article volume over other valuable research contributions.

By resetting the UK’s open access agreements, this programme directly aligns with governmental priorities for economic growth, teaching excellence and institutional efficiency. It enhances the UK’s capacity to deliver innovative, impactful research while reinforcing the financial sustainability of its institutions.

Requirements for the agreement with the publishers

Based on the requirements for transitional agreements, the sector, through consultation, has identified the following priorities for its agreement with the five publishers:

1. Reduce and constrain cost

Agreements must offer fair, affordable, and sustainable fees which guarantee open access publishing and long-term access to research. The total cost of offers must reflect the financial context institutions operate under and reduce and constrain all costs, including the costs of publishing in fully open access titles. Fees charged should reflect actual costs and be transparent, see below.

To be accepted by UK HE institutions, publisher offers must include a commitment to move from article-based models or meet a substantial number of the inclusivity and transparency criteria below.

The publisher must not charge the author or their institution any further publishing fees either under or outside the agreement, including article processing charge payments made "in the wild" by individual researchers in hybrid titles, page charges, colour charges, or charges for supplementary materials.

2. Offer a choice of open access publishing options to authors and institutions

UK institutions' support for agreements is contingent on publishers providing choice of open access route and respecting authors’ choice of original licence.

Proposals must provide a non-article based publishing model that provides open access publication of the Version of Record in a journal or on a publishing platform under the agreement and facilitates the immediate deposit of the author's accepted manuscript (AAM) or the Version of Record) in an institutional or subject repository via a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence on first online publication.

Any prior licence applied to the AAM, whether it is a requirement of their funder or affiliated institution, takes precedence over any subsequent terms.

Publishers' author facing communication and workflows must respect these prior rights and the author’s choice of open access publishing options. Publishers should not use language, terms or practices that undermine authors (including co-authors) prior rights or hinder open access publication. This includes anything that would prevent authors making their AAM immediately open access. The goal is to prevent publishers attempting to procure a breach of licence or unilaterally amending its licences or workflows.

No additional fees should be charged to authors who wish to or are required to deposit their AAM in an institutional repository, or who are required to request a CC-BY licence

The licences presented to authors resulting from these agreements must make it clear to authors how the publisher and third parties will use their work.

3. Advance a rapid and equitable global transition to open access and unrestricted access and reuse

Publishers must demonstrate their commitment to a rapid transition to full open access by:

  • Not launching new hybrid titles.
  • Sharing their roadmap charting a UK and global transition to full open access, and reporting on the proportion of flipping hybrid/subscription titles by year
  • Showing how they are rapidly growing the proportion of open access content vs paywalled to fully OA within a clear and defined timescale:
  • Offering open access as the default to all global customers.
  • Actively seeking contributions from both publishing institutions and “read only” institutions in line with the value each derive from the arrangements, ensuring these charges are transparent as below.
  • Titles offered in an agreement must remain so for its entire duration at no extra cost. Agreements must support unrestricted downloading and reuse of all content, subject to academic attribution norms.
  • Journals must be archived and preserved for future scholarship in at least one of the following archiving solutions: Portico, CLOCKSS or LOCKSS; with accurate and discoverable records relating to where the archived material may be found.

4. Inclusive participation

Progress in removing subscription paywalls must not risk creating barriers to participation in open research. Content must be freely accessible to everyone, with no financial barriers.

Proposals include a commitment to transition from per article charges to models whereby anyone can publish open access without paying fees or needing waivers.

The proposal maximizes participation and inclusivity by meeting at least four of the following criteria:

  • Does not use per-unit payments (eg, article processing charges) for funding contributions.
  • Commitment to move from a "per unit" payment model (ie article processing charges) to more equitable payment models.
  • Pricing calculations consider local geographic and economic situations, such as the Purchasing Power Parity framework.
  • No limit on the number of outputs participants can publish.
  • Uses multiple factors to determine eligibility to participate (eg, not just the affiliation of the corresponding author).

5. Provide transparency

The publisher must evidence how charges are fair, reasonable and relate to publishing services and the transition to open access. All fees or contributions should be publicly disclosed.

The rationale for fee/contribution calculations and any changes should be transparent and comprehensible, with detailed breakdowns of services and prices shared through recognised platforms.

6. Promote simplicity, efficiency, and reduced bureaucracy

These requirements form part of the Jisc model licence and are derived from our discussions with publishers, intermediaries, and international bodies, including the ESAC recommendations. Providers will be asked to provide compensation should core service levels not be met.

  • Agreements must maximise the value returned with the minimum burden on public finances, researchers, and institutions
  • Publishers must work with Jisc, intermediaries such as open access switchboard and Crossref to streamline research processes and workflows associated with managing open access to deliver efficiencies and promote open research practices
  • The publisher shall be responsible for the identification of eligible authors and eligible articles from a given individual/institution as part of the submission and publication process
  • The publisher shall build ORCID, RoR, Ringgold, or other recognised identifiers, into submission, production, and peer review workflows; expose author ORCIDs in published articles and accepted manuscripts via AI services; use Crossref and other discovery services

The publisher shall identify eligible authors through a combination of the following parameters:

  • Authors stating their affiliation(s) at article submission, including the use of
  • RoR IDs
  • ORCID
  • IP ranges
  • Email domain(s)

7. Promote and embed open research practices, research integrity, standards, and trust in research and scholarship

Proposals will be required to show how they are encouraging each of the following:

  • Inclusion of data availability statement for outputs, including research articles.
  • Sharing of underlying data and code under FAIR principles
  • Posting of preprints, including publisher facilitation.
  • Public posting of reviews for all preprints selected for peer review, regardless of formal publication status.

How the negotiations will be governed

The negotiations are sector-led, ensuring that universities speak with one voice to achieve collective goals. Two key groups will oversee the process:

  • The UUK/Jisc content negotiation strategy group comprises senior university leaders, they drive the overarching objectives and strategy for the sector’s negotiations
  • The publisher negotiation expert group represents expert practitioners and will work with the content negotiation strategy group and negotiation team to help set the detailed tactics and ensure alignment between strategy and implementation at the national and institutional level

These groups ensure that the sector speaks with one voice, leveraging collective power to achieve agreements that benefit all stakeholders.

Key dates

  • Date TBC - All five publishers informed of the sector’s requirements
  • 28 February - Memorandum of understanding for negotiations agreed with all five publishers
  • 30 June - Publishers’ proposals presented to the sector for consideration
  • 31 August - Acceptance or rejection of publishers’ proposals by sector
  • 1 November - Next Generation open access agreements launched

Progress tracker

  • 28 June - Research strategy negotiation group endorsed negotiation approach.
  • 24 October - Publisher negotiation group and research strategy negotiation group endorsed requirements for the next generation open access strategy
  • 28 November - Consultation closed in November 2024, with responses from 124 institutions - 87% agreed with high level negotiation approach recommended by publisher negotiation expert group

Why these negotiations matter

A positive research culture is vital for UK universities and research funders, driving innovation, and collaboration. UK academics consistently produce world-leading, high-quality research, often in collaboration with international peers (pdf). By prioritising inclusivity, integrity and collaboration within the research ecosystem, institutions can accelerate knowledge discoveries, support economic growth and raise educational standards, ensuring the UK remains a global leader in research and innovation.

However, payment models based on Article Processing Charges (article processing charges), including many transitional read-and-publish agreements (TAs), risk driving unsustainable growth in article volumes. The growth in articles seen in the last 5 years puts additional strain on the peer review system with implications upon research integrity, and research culture. Moreover, authors from institutions that are unable to afford subscriptions or article processing charges are excluded from accessing paywalled content or publishing open access, undermining inclusivity and the overall quality of research.

In our review of Transitional Agreements, we highlight that while these agreements have helped reduced costs and supported compliance, progress toward full open access has been slow. Many researchers in the UK and beyond still face barriers to publishing openly, highlighting inequities within the current system.