New Open Access Agreements for Western’s Researchers
Published on April 13, 2021
Good news! Researchers at Western who want to make their work open access can now benefit from new agreements with three major publishers that offer new discounts and waivers for open access journal Article Processing Charges (APCs). These agreements with SAGE, PLOS, and Elsevier were negotiated by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) on behalf of researchers at CRKN member institutions.
The agreement with SAGE means that Western-affiliated authors who publish in over 900 SAGE journals will have their work made openly available to the public without paying APCs. This applies to all SAGE journals that operate on the hybrid subscription/OA model (some exceptions apply). There is also a 40% discount on APCs for journals published on the gold OA model (entirely funded by APCs).
The CRKN-SAGE agreement is known as a “transformative” agreement because Western Libraries continues to pay SAGE for journal subscriptions, but now our subscriptions also cover the costs of making research published by Western’s authors openly available to readers around the world.
Western Libraries is also one of 19 Canadian universities to join the PLOS Community Action Publishing program. This program means there will be no APCs for Western-affiliated corresponding authors who publish in PLOS Biology or PLOS Medicine, and a 25% discount on APCs for Western-affiliated contributing authors.
The new CRKN agreement with Elsevier provides a 20% discount on APCs for Western-affiliated authors on most journals. Cell Press, Lancet, and some society-owned journals are excluded.
Western Libraries is committed to expanding open access and supporting the research mission of the university. These new agreements help us work towards these goals.
To learn more about these and other discounts and waivers for APCs, as well as options to make your work open access without paying fees, register to attend an upcoming Ins and Outs of Publishing Fees workshop.
Have questions about our APC discounts and waivers? Please email rsclib@uwo.ca.
