The Company of Biologists renews Read & Publish Open Access agreement with CAAS for a further three years

2 December 2025

The Company of Biologists is delighted to announce the renewal of our five journal Read & Publish Open Access agreement with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS).

The agreement, secured with the support of our regional agent, Charlesworth, runs from January 2026 through to December 2028 and is available to all 35 member institutions.

Corresponding authors at participating institutions in China can publish an uncapped number of research articles immediately Open Access (OA) in our transformative journals (Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology) and our fully Open Access journals (Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open) without paying an article processing charge (APC). Researchers at participating institutions also benefit from unlimited access to our transformative journals, including their full archives dating back to 1853.

Yufei Wang, Director of Resource Construction and Service Department, Institute of Agricultural Information, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, says:

“We have renewed our Read & Publish agreement with The Company of Biologists for another three years. In our role as the Agricultural Sciences Sub-center under the NSTL’s National Digital Preservation Center, we have also signed a long-term preservation agreement to ensure permanent access to these core journals.

This consolidated partnership guarantees our researchers continued access and enables our corresponding authors to publish Open Access (OA) articles at no cost across all the publisher’s journals. These benefits alleviate financial pressure on research grants, broaden the dissemination of our scientific outcomes, and promote their application —laying a solid foundation for a high-level, open, and sustainable academic innovation ecosystem.”

Michael Evans, CEO, Charlesworth, says:

“We are delighted to support The Company of Biologists and CAAS to continue this important relationship, which ensures that researchers within those 35 institutions can continue to publish in the highly respected journals within this agreement.”

Rich Blount, International Sales Manager, The Company of Biologists, says:

“I am thrilled with the renewal of our five journal Read & Publish agreement with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) for a further three years. We are also grateful for the ongoing support of our regional agent, Charlesworth. This agreement means that the extensive network of institutes will continue to gain access to high quality biology content, and their researchers can disseminate their research without financial barriers to publishing Open Access.”

Find out more about the agreement

About CAAS

Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) is a national comprehensive agricultural research institution in China. It was established in 1957 and is affiliated to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) of China. With headquarters in Beijing, CAAS oversees a graduate school, 34 affiliated research institutes located in Beijing and across China, and a publishing house. Promoting sustainable agriculture within and outside China, CAAS is committed to significantly advancing high-level agricultural science and technology innovation to benefit global society.

About The Company of Biologists
The Company of Biologists is a not-for-profit publishing organisation dedicated to supporting and inspiring the biological community. We partner with libraries and library consortia to enable biologists worldwide to access our leading peer-reviewed transformative journals — Development, Journal of Cell Science and Journal of Experimental Biology — and our fully OA journals — Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open. 2025 marks the 100-year anniversary of The Company of Biologists. We have celebrated this important milestone with a community conference and other activities throughout the year.

We also have a long-standing and ongoing commitment to OA. Our cost-neutral Read & Publish initiative enables corresponding authors at participating institutions to publish an uncapped number of OA research articles in our transformative journals and our two fully OA journals — without paying an APC. We were the first not-for-profit publisher to commit to the transformative journal approach and we are working towards a greater percentage of OA content year on year. Over 1,000 institutions in 56 countries are now participating in our cost neutral Read & Publish OA initiative. We also have Read & Publish agreements with many library consortia.

Learn more about our bio-positive publishing initiative, The Forest of Biologists.