Expanding Open Access: Publish and Read
With over 120 institutions signed up to a Microbiology Society Publish and Read deal, more researchers than ever are enjoying fee-free, frictionless OA publishing and full read access to Society journals. Tiered pricing will be introduced from 2022 with the aim of helping a broader range of institutions to convert existing publishing spend into this Transformative Agreement.
Below we feature some comments from current participants who share their thoughts and experiences with the model. Learn more about Publish and Read today.
What do you think about the Microbiology Society's Publish and Read Initiative?
“I love the intent to clarify and communicate the agreement to authors and hope to see increased uptake.”
Royal Veterinary College, UK
“Overall, very positive. Certainly no complaints to date – it was one of the first P&R deals we signed up to following the announcement of Plan S.”
University of Birmingham, UK
“Anything which moves the open access agenda forward, we see as a good thing.”
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
“Good to see publishers are engaging with Open Access.”
Macquarie University, Australia
What were the reasons behind your decision to sign up?
“The ethos and commitment behind it, and the benefit it represents for researchers.”
Royal Veterinary College, UK
“Value for money, simple to understand/transparency, low risk, direct academic interest. Along with other small society agreements negotiated via JISC, we believe they provide a good proposition for OA transformation which are costed fairly, allow unlimited OA publishing for an upfront fee and are not burdensome to administer.”
University of Birmingham, UK
“The ability to pay for funded and non-funded authors for open access and also the benefits of the read side.”
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
“[Society] journals are relevant to university's teaching and research areas and library is keen to support OA initiatives.”
Macquarie University, Australia
“Reasonable engagement, low cost, and early adoption of the model by a society made it a worthy experiment.”
University of Southampton, UK
Why would you recommend other institutions/libraries to try it?
“It is nice to spend the library budget on sustainable long-term options that stand to benefit more researchers.”
Royal Veterinary College, UK
“It is a good example that smaller publishers are able to coop with transforming agreements. Till now most energy (and resources) were focused on large size publishing houses.”
TU Delft, The Netherlands
“All institutions should try using R&P deals as opposed to just read-only deals if they can afford it. It increases the amount of research which isn't closed off behind paywalls.”
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
“It is important to support OA in order to improve accessibility of research outputs.”
Macquarie University, UAustralia
“Value for money/low risk.”
University of Southampton, UK
