Current Transformative Agreements Are Not Transformative – Science & research news | Frontiers

Over that past decade and longer, pure OA publishers have demonstrated that open science works by having already successfully provided these the services to authors; and policy makers have taken note. Now, in order to support more traditional publishers to change their subscription-based models to OA, a number of so called ‘Transformative Agreements’ – also referred to as ‘Publish and Read’ deals – have been signed between national library consortia and large publishers in recent months.

Read the position paper here

Transformative agreements – if truly transformative – would be an effective instrument to support the transition to OA. But to do so there are key transformative elements that must be present. For an agreement to be considered as “transformative”, it must contain binding conditions or mechanisms that (1) guarantee the full transition to 100% OA within a defined, short timeframe and (2) guarantee that the process cannot be easily reversed or cancelled at the end of the contractual period. The agreement should encompass all the publisher’s titles and include OA to legacy content.

... The joint position paper by Copernicus, JMIR, MDPI, Ubiquity Press and Frontiers offers an alternative solution: agreements with publishers that are already fully committed to open science and who offer full, immediate and transparent Open Access.