Böcker med upplåst hänglås på.
Photo: Karl Edqvist

The journals are already available, including the articles published during the period when the university had no agreement with Elsevier. Open Access-publishing, free of charge for SU researchers, will be applied to articles submitted from 1 January, 2020 and onwards. The agreement covers just over 2,000 scientific journals from Elsevier including journals from learned societies, The Lancet Gold*, Cell Press and all fully OA journals.

– This is a step in the right direction to achieve the goal of 100 percent pure Open Access. This agreement in combination with other transformative agreements implies almost 90 percent Open Access publications at Stockholm University in 2020. In addition to these agreements, we will continue to finance article processing charges in all fully Open Access journals, says Wilhelm Widmark, Library Director at Stockholm University Library and vice Chair of the Bibsam consortium’s steering committee, who negotiated the deal.

Stranded negotiations in 2018

Negotiations between Elsevier and the Swedish library consortium Bibsam started in 2016 but stranded in the spring of 2018, due to a disagreement on prices and a sustainable transition to Open Science. On the last of June 2018, the Elsevier agreement for all of Sweden's research libraries was cancelled, something that attracted considerable attention both in Sweden and internationally. Negotiations started again in early 2019 and have now led to the new agreement.

More information on how to publish Open Access in journals covered by the new agreement will be released in conjunction with the agreement becoming effective on January 1, 2020.

*Correction: In an earlier version of this article there were some unclear wording about which journals are included in the agreement. The Lancet Gold is included, but not the hybrid journals in The Lancet family, including the Lancet.

Quickest way to find Elsevier articles: www.sciencedirect.com 

Read the official press release from the National Library of Sweden

Read more about centrally funded and discounted article processing charges at Stockholm University

Questions about the agreements or on Open Access publishing? Email openaccess@su.se