Library: Research Publishing: Read and Publish Agreements

Read and Publish Deals and Discounts

Transformative agreements (also referred to as transitional agreements or ‘read and publish’ deals) are contracts negotiated between institutions and publishers in order to move away from subscription based reading towards a business model which means payment is made to publish in scholarly journals. In the UK, JISC negotiates transitional agreements on our behalf.

We have read and publish agreements with several academic journal publishers which reduce or remove the cost of publishing open access in their journals. The following deals are open to all current University of Staffordshire affiliated research staff and postgraduate research students who have written an eligible paper in conjunction with a member of academic staff employed at University of Staffordshire. There are slight differences between agreements, so please see eligibility details for the individual deals listed below.

Read and Publish Deals are available to:

Current University of Staffordshire affiliated research staff.
Postgraduate research students who have written an eligible paper in conjunction with a member of academic staff employed at University of Staffordshire. PGRs are identified by the @research.staffs.ac.uk email affiliation
Please ensure when encouraging a PGR to submit you are both aware of the eligibility criteria for the journal submitting to prior to submission.
Failure to meet the specific requirements for the deal will result in rejection of the waiver and in these instances the school would be invoiced by the publisher for the full cost of the APC
Further information of the Read and Publish Deals available through University of Staffordshire Library subscriptions are available here: https://libguides.staffs.ac.uk/Research_publishing/read-and-publish
Contact sarah.beighton@staffs.ac.uk for advice.

Association for Computing Machinery - ACM

University of Staffordshire affiliated corresponding authors are eligible to publish Open Access in permitted ACM journals and conference proceedings with no cost to the author. Under the ACM OPEN license model all eligible corresponding authors may publish an unlimited number of accepted research articles in these publications.

Check the list of ACM Publications Eligible for Open Access Publishing Under ACM OPEN

The corresponding author designation must be made in the conference or journal submission system and the corresponding author must include their primary affiliation and use their institutional email address. The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done.

Open access will be presented as a default choice for Affiliated Corresponding Authors, with the option to publish on a closed access basis, if they so choose.

The default authors' rights selection for authors affiliated with an institution participating in ACM OPEN is a Creative Commons CC-BY license, facilitating compliance with funder mandates.

Via publisher conference or journal submission system.

BMJ

University of Staffordshire affiliated corresponding authors are eligible to publish Open Access in permitted BMJ journals. Under this agreement they can:

Have the Article Processing Charges covered for the Open Access publication of your original research article in BMJ Hybrid Journals. Please note the agreement does not cover extra costs, i.e. colour charges that might appy with hybrid journals.
Have the Article Processing Charges covered for the Open Access publication of your funded original research in BMJ Gold OA journals covered by the agreement.

Check full details, the list of eligible funders and participating journals

When submitting through the submission system you will need to validate your primary affiliation (As University of Staffordshire), and funder (if funded) by selecting from the drop down list when prompted.

The application of the Open Access fees will automatically be sent to your institution for approval once your article has been accepted. Upon their decision you will receive an email confirmation.

Please note that if you do not satisfy all the eligibility criteria and the request is rejected, you will receive an invoice for the full cost of the APC.

Via the publisher website

During the submission process, state that you are affiliated with University of Staffordshire.

Ensure you meet the funding requirements where neccesary.

Cambridge University Press - CUP

Eligible University of Staffordshire corresponding authors are able to publish Open Access (OA) - at no cost - in gold and hybrid Cambridge University Press journals covered by this agreement.

Check for full information.

To be eligible, articles must:

Be a corresponding author who is a current University of Staffordshire affiliated research staff or an eligible postgraduate research student who has written an eligible paper in conjunction with a member of academic staff employed at University of Staffordshire.
Be original research – eligible article types are research articles, review articles and rapid communications, brief reports and case reports.
Be accepted for publication in a Cambridge University Press journal covered by the agreement.
Be accepted for publication from 1 January 2023.

Use the How to publish Open Access under this agreement section on CUP’s webpage:
Confirm that you're the corresponding author
Confirm that you're affiliated with the University of Staffordshire
Use your University of Staffordshire email address (not your private email address) (@research.staffs.ac.uk if an eligible PGR) to be identified as eligible under the agreement.
Include your ORCID
Use a CCBY licence.

Elsevier

University of Staffordshire corresponding authors are eligible to publish Open Access in permitted Elsevier, Lancet and Cell Press journals. Under this agreement they can:

Publish their peer-reviewed research open access in hybrid journals, without the need to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC).
Publish their peer-reviewed research in fully Open Access journals with a 15% reduction and price cap on publishing in Elsevier’s fully OA journals (Gold Open Access),

See the Elsevier-UK Institutions Agreement for detailed information and a list of participating journals.

Only the following article types in Hybrid journals are eligible: Research and Review articles, Case Reports, Data in Brief, Micro-article, Original Software Publication, Protocol, Replication Study, Short Communication, Short Survey, Video Article, Practice Guideline. There are further restrictions on eligible article types for The Cell Press and The Lancet.

For fully OA journals a 15% discount is available when publishing in these titles. As the university does not have a central APC budget, authors should ensure they have the funding available from their department prior to submitting papers for publication via this route.

Please note that if you do not satisfy all the eligibility criteria and the request is rejected, you will receive an invoice for the full cost of the APC.

Via publisher website

During the submission process, state that you are affiliated with University of Staffordshire and use your university email address

Wiley

University of Staffordshire corresponding authors are able to publish open access in all Wiley journals without having to pay an APC.

Your manuscript must have been submitted or accepted on or after 1 January 2025
You must be the responsible corresponding author who is affiliated with a participating UK institution (see the UK section of our Institutional & Funder Payments page)
You must publish open access in a fully gold OA journal or a hybrid (subscription) journal that offers open access
Only primary research and review articles qualify including but not limited to original articles, case studies, reviews, and short communications. This focus on high-quality research ensures that the funding supports impactful and valuable scientific contributions.
If publishing in a hybrid (subscription) journal, you must order open access at the point of acceptance by using the Wiley order workflow.
This agreement cannot be used to cover additional charges (e.g. cover, colour, and page charges), which individual journals administer separately.

See the Wiley Open Access agreement for authors for more information.

There is a UK-wide limit on the total number of papers which can be published Open Access via this deal. Once this threshold is hit, the deal will pause, and immediate Open Access with Wiley will be unavailable for University of Staffordshire authors for a period of time.

The agreement currently applies to both funded and unfunded papers but is likely to be restricted to papers funded by the following organisations later in the year: UKRI; The Wellcome Trust; Cancer Research UK (CRUK); British Heart Foundation (BHF); Arthritis Research UK; Bloodwise; Parkinson’s UK.

Via publisher website

During submission, when asked how you will pay the OA charge, select ‘My institution has an agreement with Wiley’ and use the Account Code Tool to find the correct code.