SUBJECT:

Transformative Open Access Agreement

Dear UC San Diego Community,

We are pleased to announce that the University of California (UC) has reached a transformative open access agreement with Springer Nature, the world’s second-largest academic publisher.

Under the agreement, all articles with a UC corresponding author, published in the more than 2,700 Springer Nature journals will become open access by default. The UC Libraries will fund a portion of the open access fee on behalf of all UC authors; authors will cover the remainder. Authors without available research funds to cover their portion of the publishing fee may request that the Library cover the entire amount. Authors will also have the opportunity to opt out of open access publishing should they choose.

Though broad-based open access publishing in the most well-known Nature journals is not initially included, the agreement commits Springer Nature and UC to collaborate on an open science pilot in 2021, and to develop plans for a transformative agreement for all Nature journals to be implemented in the third year of the agreement.

This is the largest open access agreement in North America to date, and adds to UC’s existing transformative open access agreements with Cambridge University Press, society publisher ACM, and native open access publishers JMIR and PLoS (http://lib.ucsd.edu/oa-winter19-updates). Conversations with other publishers are still underway. Together, these agreements demonstrate the broad potential of UC’s approach to transform scholarly publishing in the United States to a sustainable, open access model, and to provide broad public access to UC’s expansive research outcomes.

We will continue to keep you apprised of any new agreements or notable open access developments. For additional information and updates on UC’s negotiations with Elsevier, visit https://library.ucsd.edu/news-events/open-access-update-summer20/.

For additional information about the Library’s Summer 2020 remote resources and services, visit http://lib.ucsd.edu/remoteservices.

Elizabeth H. Simmons Executive Vice Chancellor Maripat Corr Chair, San Diego Divisional Academic Senate Steven Constable Vice Chair, San Diego Divisional Academic Senate John Hildebrand Chair, San Diego Divisional Committee on the Library Erik Mitchell The Audrey Geisel University Librarian