The University of Liverpool and Elsevier

An agreement has now been signed between the UK HE sector and Elsevier for a transitional read and publish deal. This will provide both read access to Elsevier-published content and pay for open access publishing in most Elsevier subscription journals, including Cell Press and Lancet titles. Full details will soon be added to our Publisher Agreements and Memberships page.

Achieved after many months of negotiation and a tremendous amount of work by library staff across the sector to model different scenarios, the agreement combines a significant reduction in cost with greatly increasing the amount of material our authors will be able to publish on an open access basis. This success is evidence of the power of universities working in close cooperation towards a common goal, and sets a new benchmark for negotiations with other large academic publishers.

A seventh proposal has been received from Elsevier and has gone out to consultation with UK universities. This proposal is much improved from previous offers and we are hopeful an agreement is in sight.

The Russell Group, along with the Million Plus group, have issued a statement indicating their strong support of Jisc's approach to the negotiations with Elsevier for a new national deal that constrains costs to sustainable level and ensures full open access for UK research outputs:

Our universities are fully committed to the approach being taken by the UK’s Elsevier Negotiation Team and support the recommendation to reject the most recent proposal from Elsevier on the basis it does not yet meet the two core objectives of the negotiations: to reduce costs to levels which are sustainable, and facilitate rapid transition to full and immediate open access to UK research.

UK universities have agreed a set of negotiation objectives that reflect our shared desire to foster open research. We welcome the progress the Elsevier Negotiation Team has made with Elsevier over recent months, whilst noting their advice that the current proposal does not yet deliver against the sector’s requirements. We hope both parties can continue to work together to achieve a more equitable agreement which allows for the sector-wide management of the open access transition.

Negotiations are still continuing between Jisc (on behalf of the UK HE sector) and Elsevier, with the aim of achieving an affordable read and publish agreement that secures for researchers both read access to content published by Elsevier and straightforward open access publishing in their journals.

While negotiations are still ongoing, it is vital that UK universities are prepared for the possibility of no agreement being reached, and that researchers are aware of this possibility and understand the reasons behind any decision to walk away from negotiations. What would happen in such a scenario? How would researchers and students continue to access material published by Elsevier during a period in which we did not have the same current subscription access to their content?

The University is part of a consortium of large, research-active UK universities that have agreed to work closely together to ensure that any inevitable disruption of access to content published by Elsevier is kept to a minimum, should negotiations end without a deal in place. Having such agreements in place will also mean we are well placed for similar negotiations with other large publishers in the future.

Features of a “Plan B” in the event of cancellation of a large publisher deal

We would not cancel subscription access to all titles from Elsevier. Instead of the current “Big Deal” where we access the full portfolio of journals, we would instead subscribe to a core selection of journals that our data show are in most demand across the institution and thus retain seamless access to those titles.

We would also continue to have access to older material from those journals to which we had subscribed individually before the advent of the “Big Deal” – this so-called Post-Cancellation Access would continue to provide access to that content.

We will implement a very rapid inter-library loan scheme that would ensure that much material for which immediate access cannot be provided can nevertheless be provided in a timely manner. Indeed, the impetus to make these preparations has had the side-effect of improving collaboration across libraries in the sector.

Additionally, there will be content in Elsevier journals that is available on an open access basis, for example through institutional repositories and subject repositories. With the aid of browser plugin tools such as EndNote Click researchers and students would be able to identify quickly if a paper whose details they have on their device’s screen is available on an open access basis.

Based on a wealth of past usage data and trend analysis, we believe that such an approach would secure researchers access to the majority of the Elsevier-published material they would need. It is clear though that there would be disruption, that newer content in Elsevier journals could not be used in student reading lists, and we would not be able to offer the current anytime, anywhere access to all Elsevier journal content.

If Plan B were in place for a prolonged period, disruption would gradually increase given that the material to which we would lose access would be the most recently published material – but it is our strong hope that Plan B would not have to be in place for a prolonged period. Should we have to implement a Plan B we will communicate this in advance across the institution to ensure wide awareness of the arrangements, alongside the reasons behind their implementation.

We must stress that our goal is to secure an affordable read and publish agreement with Elsevier that meets the sector’s requirements. Implementation of Plan B would only occur in the event of an unacceptable proposal being offered to UK universities, and its existence can only strengthen our case for achieving the best long-term outcome for our researchers.

The University of Liverpool subscribes to over 1,800 journals on Elsevier’s ScienceDirect service – a significant portion of the literature our researchers engage with daily.

The University pays over £780,000 for this subscription access, enabling University members and users of our library services to access Elsevier journals online.

Authors at the University also publish extensively in Elsevier journals. This often incurs separate costs – in 2019 this cost was an additional £158,419. Why is this?

Most major research funders mandate that their grant-holders provide open access to the outputs of their research. The University itself has a policy requiring journal articles and conference proceedings to be open access wherever possible. Making publications openly accessible to audiences both academic and non-academic is an important part of the University’s mission of “advancing learning an ennobling life”.

Likewise, the principle of open access is central to the international Plan S initiative which requires that, from 2021, publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms.

There are different ways of making works openly accessible. Many publishers impose so-called article processing charges to make a publication open access in one of their journals.

When publishing in this way, Liverpool authors of articles with Elsevier can incur costs of up to £5,000, and usually of well over £2,000, per paper.

With acknowledgment to University of Cambridge to the materials that form the basis of this information, adapted here under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

Publishers and research institutions are developing a range of new business models to find sustainable approaches to open access publishing.

The University of Liverpool has entered into “transitional” open access agreements with many publishers and scholarly societies on a “read and publish” basis, including three of the four publishers with whom we publish the most. Under these agreements, publishers receive payment both for access to subscribed content and open access publishing of our authors’ papers, bundled into a single contract.

In this way, the University supports the wide dissemination of its research and scholarship at a sustainable costs – with the further benefit that the open access publishing process in these journals is much simpler for Liverpool authors.

These transitional deals are supported by cOAlition S funders: they help to transform scholarly publishing towards the Plan S goal of achieving full and immediate open access to peer-reviewed scholarly publications from research funded by public and private grants.

There is currently no open access agreement in place with Elsevier, and open access fees are paid on an article-by-article basis only where funding is available.

Despite publishing over 20% of UK scholarly outputs, Elsevier is unusual in not having established a transitional and Plan S-compliant open access agreement with UK universities.

With acknowledgment to University of Cambridge to the materials that form the basis of this information, adapted here under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

The contract between Elsevier and UK Universities is due for renewal in December 2021.

The UK Universities sector is entering into negotiations with Elsevier with two core objectives:

1. reduction in costs to levels the sector can actually sustain;
2. full and immediate open access to UK research.

The aim is to secure a read and publish agreement with Elsevier that converts subscription expenditure to support immediate open access publishing while maintaining access to paywalled subscription content, for a reduced fee.

UK Universities agreed their priorities for the next Elsevier agreement in 2020 and began negotiations in March 2021. The negotiations are governed by two groups: the Universities UK content negotiation strategy group and the content expert group. Representatives from each group will sit on the official negotiation team and Jisc, the not-for-profit digital services provider for education and research, will facilitate the overall negotiations.

Jisc has produced a video highlighting the key issues.

The broad issues behind the negotiations have been presented to Research & Impact Committee and University Senate, and a communications strategy has been developed.

We are currently in an information and data gathering stage that will inform our institutional response to proposals and influence negotiations.

With acknowledgment to University of Cambridge to the materials that form the basis of this information, adapted here under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.