Read & Publish and transformative Open Access agreements with library consortia
Read & Publish and agreements are available to library consortia worldwide. We are also pleased to collaborate with consortia to pilot other transformative Open Access models.
In addition, we have signed a landmark agreement with Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL) which enables corresponding authors in 33 developing and transition economy countries to publish Open Access research articles in our journals without paying an article processing charge (APC).
What do our Read & Publish agreements offer? How is pricing calculated?
Our standard Read & Publish agreements offer:
uncapped, immediate and fee-free Open Access publishing of research articles for corresponding authors in our transformative journals plus our two fully Open Access journals – Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open.
Pricing for standard Read & Publish agreements is calculated on the basis of the number of institutions within the consortium that wish to participate and their historic publishing and subscription spend.
We are also happy to discuss alternative Open Access models with library consortia.
We have had great feedback from library consortia (see below) and also from librarians at participating institutions.
Christoph Kurze, University of Regensburg, Germany
"We believe in the power of Open Access. Thanks to the Read & Publish agreement between The Company of Biologists and the University of Regensburg, we were able to publish our work without additional fees. This was especially important to us, as our research was conducted without third-party funding. We hope other publishers follow this example to help reduce inequalities in academic publishing and ensure that the focus remains on scientific rigor."
"I am pleased that our university’s Read & Publish agreement allowed us to publish our recent work in Journal of Experimental Biology as Open Access. This ensures that our research is freely available to both the scientific community and the general public, without being behind a paywall. The process of arranging Open Access publication was straightforward, thanks to the efficient coordination between the journal and the University of Rostock. Thank you!"
Christian Ungermann, Osnabrück University, Germany
"Making the article available to the community as Open Access is excellent as it tremendously increases visibility. I strongly support the Open Access movement, and also appreciate the hazel tree, planted on behalf of my article in The Forest of Biologists, which supports many insects and provides shelter for ground-nesting birds."
Annette Borchers, Philipps University of Marburg, Germany
"Thanks to our Read & Publish agreement, we were able to make our research freely available to the global scientific community without any article processing charges. It’s a great way to make research more accessible to everyone!"
Erik Stattin, National Library of Sweden/Bibsam Consortium, Sweden
"We are delighted with the renewal of the Read & Publish agreement between The Company of Biologists and the Bibsam Consortium. The agreement means that researchers at participating institutions can continue to publish an unlimited number of Open Access articles in all five of the Company’s journals, alongside read access. The agreement also means that we continue to advance Open Science with a small, not-for-profit publisher that additionally celebrates the work of scientists, including those from Bibsam member institutions, with its biodiversity initiative, The Forest of Biologists."
"CAUL is pleased to continue our Read & Publish Open Access agreement with The Company of Biologists. Uncapped agreements provide certainty to authors that their articles will be published Open Access, streamlines processes for institutions, and reflects a mature relationship between libraries and publisher. CAUL is committed to the ongoing transition of scholarly communication, and agreements like this play a pivotal role in delivering on the promise of Open Access."
"We are pleased to renew our agreement with The Company of Biologists. As well as providing access to the latest biological literature for UK universities and supporting cutting-edge research, it will also continue to facilitate the transition to Open Access for UK research and the publisher."
Rita Aires, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
Rita Aires, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
"Open Access is crucial to make research available to everyone, anytime. Knowing that the Technische Universität Dresden, through its state library (SLUB), was part of the Read & Publish Open Access initiative made our choice of journal a lot easier, especially when this agreement comprises high-quality journals such as Disease Models & Mechanisms. Not having to use valuable funding for an APC was a welcome change and will encourage me to publish again in journals from The Company of Biologists. I hope this paves the way for other publishers to join similar agreements so that science can become more inclusive and equitable!"
Rich Schneider, University of California at San Francisco, USA
"I’m thrilled that the University of California has renewed its transformative Open Access agreement with The Company of Biologists, a mission-driven, community-led publisher that shares UC’s goal of making the scholarly publishing landscape more open. I was a member of the team that negotiated the first Open Access agreement between UC and The Company of Biologists. I have been an author with The Company of Biologists for more than 20 years, and since the start of UC’s partnership with the Company in 2021, UC authors have published more than 85 Open Access articles in its journals, increasing the visibility and impact of their research. I hope that even more UC authors will take advantage of this renewed agreement and make their scholarship freely available to researchers and anyone else around the world by publishing Open Access in The Company of Biologists’ journals."
Sainul Abideen, IISER Thiruvananthapuram, India
"Researchers from IISERs are very keen to publish articles in an Open Access model, without any financial burden. The agreement between the IISER Library Consortium and The Company of Biologists will boost the publications from the participating IISERs."
Sandeep Pathak, IISER Bhopal, India
"Read & Publish agreements are an alternative to the traditional subscription model. This agreement will help the researchers/authors from IISERs gradually tip the balance of their publishing output towards Open Access, making the process smoother and research more impactful. The recent collaboration with The Company of Biologists signals a promising surge in scholarly output from IISERs, ushering in a new era of accessible and impactful research. With a Read & Publish agreement in place at IISER Bhopal, article processing charges (APCs) will be waived by the publisher and authors can publish gold Open Access (OA). Authors will also have access to every paper in their journal portfolio."
Marina Mikhaylova, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
"Thanks to the Read & Publish agreement between the Humboldt University and The Company of Biologists, we are able to publish our research as Open Access in
Journal of Cell Science without any additional cost.
We are always committed to making our research openly accessible to benefit the wider community. Public accessibility is crucial for science communication and promoting scientific knowledge, and we therefore strongly support this Open Access initiative."
"Quite apart from the fact that Journal of Experimental Biology is my favourite journal, owing to both focus and breadth of my research interests, I was aware that my home university had a Read & Publish agreement with The Company of Biologists and that was actually a major reason for choosing JEB for our publication. I have been retired for 2 years now and thus would not have had any funds available to cover Open Access charges. It came as a pleasant surprise how little effort it was to obtain the APC waiver and the copy editing and the other publication services were also excellent."
"SANLiC is excited to collaborate with The Company of Biologists to repurpose reading expenditure, enabling our researchers to publish in The Company of Biologists’ hybrid and fully Open Access journals at no fee. We need a world where under-resourced researchers can participate meaningfully in research production and dissemination. So, we are very pleased!"
Sung-Chul Moon, The Korea University of College Library Association, Korea South
"The KCUE Consortium is a joint purchasing consortium of university libraries in the Republic of Korea. The 2024-2026 Read & Publish agreement with The Company of Biologists is the second Open Access conversion agreement for the KCUE Consortium. With this contract, universities have secured both The Company of Biologists’ journals and Open Access publishing rights and can contribute to the spread of open science, where academic research outputs are freely available not only to university researchers but also to anyone in the world. In the future, the KCUE Consortium plans to accelerate Open Access conversion agreements with more publishers."
Kim Wan-Jong, Korea Institute of Science and Information (KISTI), Korea South
"It is a great pleasure to announce the inclusion of The Company of Biologists in the KESLI Consortium through their committed Read & Publish agreement. This agreement marks a significant step in the long journey to full Open Access. Through the Korean E-resource Service for Library (KESLI) Consortium, we will cooperate with Open Access innovators, including global publishers and the research community, to advance Open Access in the Republic of Korea."
"With JUSTICE’s agreement to The Company of Biologists’ Read & Publish proposal, we are pleased to introduce a model for promoting open access in the field of biology for Japanese universities. JUSTICE believes in the importance of a healthy ecosystem for the distribution of scholarly information. We hope that the agreement with The Company of Biologists, a non-profit publishing house, will provide an opportunity to expand the diversity within the publication, rather than solely focusing on large commercial publishers."
Dorothea Schulte , Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany
"I am delighted that the Read & Publish agreement between The Company of Biologists and Goethe University Frankfurt allowed me to publish our latest article in Journal of Cell Science Open Access free of charge. It is extremely important that peer-reviewed scientific results are made freely available as soon as possible and by as many as possible. The entire Open Access process was simple, straightforward, author-friendly and, like the entire publishing process with The Company of Biologists, a thoroughly positive experience."
Ádám Dér, Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL), Germany
"We at the MPDL are delighted to extend our collaboration with The Company of Biologists, which means we can continue to offer our researchers the possibility to publish open access in all the publisher’s journals as well as access to all previously published content. Providing these opportunities to our authors is at the heart of our overall strategy in the world of scholarly publishing, in line with the Max Planck Society’s vision of openness, which in turn reflects the principles of the OA2020 Initiative and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access."
Agnès Ponsati, Spanish National Research Council, Spain
"In 2021, CSIC signed a transformative agreement with The Company of Biologists that supported the publisher’s transition to Read & Publish models. URICI, in its strategy of promoting open access to research outputs, has followed the path of collaborating in this transition with both large publishers and smaller ones, such as The Company of Biologists. In the renewal of this agreement for 2024, the step is taken to also incorporate two fully Open Access journals, since they have been shown to be of great interest among the CSIC’s biology community."
Petra Labriga, Head of Strategic Licensing, ZB Med – Information Centre for Life Sciences, Germany
"In our role as the German Information Center for Life Sciences, ZB Med is strongly invested in helping German life scientists publish their work Open Access in an affordable yet highly professional environment. Focusing on Open Access and transformative agreements for German Life Sciences, we invite all interested German academic and research institutions and hospitals to join this consortium agreement with The Company of Biologists to take advantage of this non-APC based, uncapped author publishing opportunity."
"We are glad that corresponding authors from EIFL partner countries will be able to publish Open Access in all The Company of Biologists’ journals. We value the partnership with the Company and welcome the extension of the agreement for three more years for free access and publishing for 30 EIFL partner countries."
"As stated in the JULAC’s Position Statement on Open Scholarship, JULAC is committed to enabling Open Access (OA) to research publications. This agreement with The Company of Biologists is an example of the tangible support that libraries can provide to their institution’s researchers in making their work Open Access."
P Visakhi, Umeshareddy Kacherki and K Murugaraj, IISER, India
"We are delighted with the new Read & Publish agreement between The Company of Biologists and the IISER Library Consortium. Researchers at participating institutions will benefit from the ability to publish an unlimited number of Open Access articles in all five journals. This mutually agreed arrangement is expected to yield excellent results within the Open Science landscape."
"The Company of Biologists was one of the first publishers IReL signed a Read & Publish agreement with. We have been impressed with how they have been a leading example of a small, not-for-profit publisher offering their Read & Publish to libraries and consortia globally, and how they have been active in sharing emerging best practice in OA publishing with the scholarly communications community"
"The Company of Biologists was one of the first publishers MALMAD signed a Read & Publish agreement with. We are now very pleased to renew the agreement, covering the costs for researchers at seven institutions in Israel to publish an unlimited number of Open Access articles in all three of The Company’s hybrid journals, whilst also giving them reading access. Our continued cooperation is an important step in the transition to Open Access."
"We are very pleased with the new Read & Publish agreement between The Company of Biologists and the Bibsam Consortium, covering costs for Swedish researchers at participating institutions to publish an unlimited number of Open Access articles in all five of The Company of Biologists’ journals, whilst also giving them read access. To sign transformative agreements with small not-for-profit publishers is an important step in line with our action plan to advance Open Science."
Angus Cook, Content Procurement at the Council of Australian LIbrarians (CAUL), Australia
"Having a Read & Publish agreement with The Company of Biologists, commencing in 2022, is an important continuation of CAUL’s progression to providing broader Open Access arrangements via consortium agreements. The agreement is useful not only for the access it gives to content across the biological sciences used by CAUL members, but also the ability to publish OA in these subject areas which will be highly valued for locally produced research. Agreements with organisations such as The Company of Biologists also confirm CAUL’s commitment to work with publishers of all sizes."
"We’re delighted to offer this agreement. Not only does this transitional agreement support the UK in the transition to Open Access it will help provide the latest biological research for use and reuse at no charge by early-career biologists and cutting-edge researchers alike. This builds on the sector’s success in making over 50% of UK research Open Access and will amplify the impact and reach of research."
"As the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe, the Spanish National Research Council is firmly committed to driving Open Science by promoting open access to CSIC’s research results.
The Read & Publish agreement with The Company of Biologists is a new step forward in our strategy of promoting Open Access as a key pillar for open science at CSIC. We are pleased because it is a real cost-neutral agreement, thus fulfilling one of the basic principles of so-called transformative agreements. The agreement adds to the more than 25 open access agreements that CSIC has signed with a wide range of scientific publishers as part of its Open Access Publishing Support Program, with the aim of fostering a diverse and plural Open Access publishing ecosystem."
Ivy Anderson, University of California’s California Digital Library, USA
"UC couldn’t be more delighted to partner with The Company of Biologists on an Open Access agreement. As a leading scientist-led non-profit publisher of high-quality journals that shares our mission of transitioning the research literature to Open Access, The Company of Biologists is an important and valued outlet for UC authors. We appreciate their willingness to instantiate UC’s shared funding model and are pleased to partner with them on their first large-scale Open Access agreement in the United States"
Ralf Schimmer, Max Planck Digital Library, Germany
"We are very pleased to implement this new agreement with The Company of Biologists, and salute their willingness to test new economic models that are repurposing previous subscription fees to facilitate a sustainable and cost-neutral transition of their journals to an Open Access publishing model. This agreement marks a further, significant step in the Max Planck Society’s strategy to enable open dissemination of research, in line with the principles of the OA2020 Initiative and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access."
"IReL is delighted to sign an agreement with The Company of Biologists. It provides our corresponding authors with immediate Open Access publishing without them needing to pay article processing charges. The agreement also enables students and researchers to have access to additional journals previously unavailable to them."
"We are excited to reach our first Read and Publish agreement with The Company of Biologists, offering an affordable framework for Israel’s universities. This is a significant step in our efforts to accelerate full and immediate open access through transformative agreements as cost effectively as possible."
"This agreement is an important step towards making the transition to Open Access more equitable. We are pleased to partner with The Company of Biologists to allow free Open Access publishing in their three hybrid journals. We are also pleased that The Company of Biologists is able to provide automatic recognition of authors, eliminating the need for authors to actively claim an APC waiver."
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