Sweden’s research libraries have, through the national consortium Bibsam, terminated its agreement with Elsevier as of 1st of July. The reason why is that the parties could not agree on a reasonable price model and a sustainable solution for a transition towards open science.

According to the research government bill, the goal is to make all scientific publications that are financed by public funds openly available immediately when they are published, by 2026. The articles can for example be made accessible through APC:s, instead of being locked in behind large subscription fees for the journals. But in today’s system, Stockholm University pays large costs to the publishers both to be able to read and to publish articles, which in the long run is not economically sustainable.

Stockholm University will therefore use the money deposited on the terminated agreement to support those of the university's researchers who want to get published in full Open Access journals. According to the university, publishing in full Open Access journals with all publishers help to urge the development towards a sustainable transition to open science.

This is how you do to get your APC financed centrally:

  • When your article is accepted in a full Open Access journal, please contact the library: openaccess@su.se. Please note that you must not pay any invoices/APC:s before checking with the library if your APC can be paid for by the library instead.
  • Corresponding author (the person who handles the manuscript and correspondence during the publication process) must be affiliated with Stockholm University.
  • Use your SU email address, ending with “su.se”. This to ease the identification of eligible articles.
  • For central funding of publication in full OA journals, the journal in question should be listed in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).


In addition, the library has a number of agreements with publishers, which gives researchers at Stockholm University discounted or fully paid article processing charges. Here you will find all the information.