Kategoria: News in English

Continuing the Elsevier deal with the current terms is no longer financially sustainable

16.6.2026

The open access agreement between the FinELib consortium – representing Finnish universities and research institutions – and the scientific publisher Elsevier will expire at the end of 2026. Negotiations for a new agreement began in April. The agreement is exceptionally expensive: in 2026, its cost will be €8.6 million.

A wide range of Finnish higher education and research institutions participate in the Elsevier agreement. The agreement includes reading access to journals in Elsevier’s Freedom Collection as well as to selected Cell Press journals.

The agreement enables researchers to publish open access articles at no additional cost to authors in Freedom and Cell Press hybrid journals as long as the publishing quota included in the agreement has not been exhausted. In addition, researchers receive a 15 percent discount on publication fees in fully open access journals covered by the agreement.

One important problem with the current agreement is that it does not enable all authors to publish their articles open access. The quota for free open access articles will be exhausted in the Autumn, forcing authors to seek alternative routes for opening their publications and causing frustration within the research community. Our goal is that, in the future, authors can publish open access without having to worry about running out of article quotas, says Kaisa Miettinen, Vice Rector for Research at the University of Jyväskylä and Chair of the FinELib Steering Group.

Another key issue is the overall cost of the agreement. The Elsevier agreement is significantly more expensive than FinELib’s comparable agreements. Finnish universities and research institutions simply cannot afford such an expensive agreement going forward, emphasizes Minna Niemi‑Grundström, University Librarian at the University of Helsinki.

The FinELib unit at the National Library of Finland systematically monitors the costs and benefits of consortium agreements. Data collected to support the ongoing negotiations shows that the Elsevier agreement is also exceptionally expensive in terms of cost per published article.

The FinELib negotiation group includes Kaisa Miettinen, Vice Rector for Research at the University of Jyväskylä and Chair of the FinELib Steering Group, Jyri Hämäläinen, Vice Rector for Research at Aalto University, and Minna Niemi‑Grundström, University Librarian at the University of Helsinki, as well as experts from the FinELib unit.

Finnish higher education institutions and research organizations are seeking substantial changes to the agreement. The key objectives are to remove the publication quota, so that there are no caps on the number of open access articles, and to significantly reduce the overall cost of the agreement. At the same time, it is important to retain comprehensive reading access to journals included in the Freedom Collection.

The FinELib negotiation group is strongly committed to finding a solution that ensures both openness and cost‑effectiveness for Finnish research. Advancing open science while maintaining financial sustainability is in the shared interest of the entire research community. The Finnish community has expressed strong support for these negotiation objectives, says Jyri Hämäläinen, Vice Rector for Research at Aalto University.

Timo Vilén appointed as Head of FinELib Services

22.12.2025

Timo Vilén has been appointed as Head of Services at FinELib’s office, following the retirement of Arja Tuuliniemi.

Timo has worked at FinELib since 2019. He is active in various national and international networks of open access publishing and library consortia. Timo will begin as Head of Services on 1 March 2026.

Open publishing in Wiley’s fully open journals during the end of the year

16.12.2025

The article quota for Wiley’s Full OA journals under the FinELib agreement for 2025 has been depleted. However, you can publish your article for free under the quota for 2026.

FinELib’s Wiley agreement for 2025–2026 includes an annual quotas for publishing open access articles in both Wiley’s hybrid journals and Full OA journals. For Full OA journals, the article quota for 2025 has been used up, and authors publishing in Full OA journals will receive the following message from Wiley upon acceptance of their article for the remainder of the year:

Your request for the article publication charge to be paid by [Institution Name] has been denied. Denial reason: Your institution, funder, or society has run out of open access article funding and therefore cannot currently pay the article publication charge. If you have questions regarding the reason for the denial of your request, please contact your institution or funder.

If you receive such a message, sign the OA license and complete the article publication process only at the beginning of 2026 to ensure that your article is published openly and free of charge from next year's quota. And if you do receive an invoice for the APC fee for the article, do not pay the invoice.

Open access publishing in Wiley's hybrid journals will continue as normal.

Read also: Instructions for Open Access Publishing in Wiley Journals

Open publishing continues with Elsevier and Cambridge University Press

 

11.12.2025

FinELib agreements with both publishers have been extended until the end of 2026.

FinELib’s agreement with Cambridge University Press allows authors from participating institutions to publish Open Access in journals included in CUP’s Full Collection at no additional charge. The costs of OA are covered by the agreement and paid for from library budgets.

Check if you are eligible to publish Open Access in Cambridge University Press journals

The agreement between FinELib and Elsevier includes two journal packages, SD Freedom and Cell Press.

In SD Freedom, corresponding authors from participating institutions can publish Open Access without additional charge or at a discount.

Check if you are eligible to publish Open Access in Elsevier’s Freedom journals with no additional charge or at a discount

Corresponding authors from participating institutions can publish Open Access at no additional charge in Cell Press journals eligible for the agreement.

Check if you are eligible to publish Open Access in Cell Press journals with no additional charge

New Open Access agreement with Medical Journals Sweden

26.6.2025

FinELib is pleased to announce a new Open Access publishing agreement with Medical Journals Sweden (MJS) Publishing, effective from from 1 May 2025 through 31 December 2026.

The agreement will allow participating institutions, the University of Helsinki, Tampere University, University of Turku, and Savonia University of Applied Sciences, to benefit from discounted Article Processing Charges (APC) and central invoicing through FinELib.

Authors from participating institutions can publish their research Open Access in eligible MJS journals at no cost to themselves.

Read more about Open Access Publishing in MJS Journals.

MJS Publishing is a Swedish open access journal publisher, founded in 2021 by the Society for the Publication of Acta Dermato-Venereologica and the Foundation of Rehabilitation Information.

Several MJS journals have strong ties to the Finnish research community, including Acta Oncologica, the official journal of the five Nordic oncological societies, and Acta Orthopaedica (previously Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavica 1930–2004), the official publication of the Nordic Orthopaedic Federation.

FinELib and Sage agree on a new Open Access deal for Finland

17.3.2025

Building on the previous transformative agreement between FinELib and Sage, the new deal allows researchers at participating institutions to publish an unlimited number of open access articles in Sage’s hybrid journals at no additional cost.

For articles submitted to Sage’s Fully OA (Gold) journals, institutions can choose between a 20% discount on the APC or full coverage based on their selected model.

The agreement also provides reading access to Sage’s journal portfolio, while reducing costs and aligning with FinELib’s acquisition requirements.

A complete list of participating institutions can be found here.

Key Benefits of the Agreement

  • Access to Sage Premier 2022 or 2025 collection including over 900 or 1,150 journals.
  • Reduction in fees for all institutions regardless of the choice of collection.
  • Perpetual access rights to subscribed content.
  • Unlimited OA publishing in SAGE's hybrid journals.
  • A 20% APC discount or unlimited publishing in Sage’s Fully OA (Gold) journals depending on the model chosen by institutions.
  • CC BY license by default for all published articles.
  • Annual opt-out for institutions.

For more details, please refer to our author instructions.

New FinELib agreements continue to promote open science

28.2.2025

The agreements finalized in early 2025 enable access to articles published behind paywalls and give researchers the possibility to publish their articles open access without additional costs.

The new agreements signed by the FinELib consortium cover the following journal collections:

These agreements gives access to approx. 3 650 scientific journals and makes it possible to publish approx. 1 450 open access articles annually.

Negotiations on the final agreement details are still ongoing with Wiley and ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). During the negotiations, subscribers will continue to have access to journals from these publishers. Detailed instructions for publishing articles in these journals can be found in instruction pages Open Access Publishing in Wiley Journals and Open Access Publishing in ACM Journals.

Details of the finalized agreements can be found on the Negotiation Status page.

Open access publishing with FinELib agreements can be followed on the Results & Impacts page.

Open Access Publishing After the Turn of the Year

19.12.2024

FinELib is currently negotiating the continuation of scientific journal agreements that expire at the end of 2024. Free open access publishing under FinELib agreements may be put on hold if a new agreement is not ready by the turn of the year.

If a new agreement is not finalized by the end of the year, open access publishing under FinELib agreements may be paused starting from January 1, 2025, in the journals of the following publishers:

The article quotas included in the agreements with Taylor & Francis and Wiley have already been exhausted. Some organizations have continued open access publishing even after this, so please check the situation with your organization’s library or information service.

I’m about to publish my article in a journal from one of these publishers – what should I do?

What happens with the open access publishing of your article depends on the date of acceptance of your article

If the publisher/journal accepts your article during 2024, it can be published open access as part of FinELib's current agreement. provided there are remaining article quotas in the agreement.

If the acceptance of the article falls into 2025, open access publishing can’t be covered by the current agreement. FinELib’s aim is that articles from early 2025 could be retrospectively published open access, if an agreement is reached later in 2025. However, this depends on the final negotiation outcome and cannot be guaranteed.

If no new agreement would be reached with some publishers, open access publishing as part of the FinELib agreement with those publishers would end on December 31, 2024. However, negotiations are still ongoing with all publishers. New agreements will be announced once they are signed.

Please also check FinELib’s guides for open access publishing under existing FinELib agreements, and contact the library of information service of your own organisation if you need additional guidance.

I want to read journals from these publishers – how can I do that?

As negotiations with the publisher continue, access to journals is often granted during negotiation period, even if the old agreement period has ended. Access to journals will thus mostly continue as usual, even if negotiations extend into 2025.

Open access publishing for other FinELib agreements continues as usual

The FinELib consortium also has open access publishing agreements with the following publishers:

  • Cambridge University Press
  • IEEE
  • Elsevier (ScienceDirect Freedom journals)
  • Oxford University Press
  • Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
  • Springer Nature (Springer Compact journals)

These agreements will continue until the end of 2024, and open access publication with these publishers will continue as normal.

FinELib’s collaboration with ACS ends

10.10.2024

Negotiations between FinELib and the American Chemical Society (ACS) for the 2025 consortium agreement have concluded without success. This is due to disagreements over significant contract terms.

As the negotiations with ACS have prolonged, the FinELib consortium has been without an agreement on ACS journals for the current year. Researchers and students haven’t had access to the latest ACS articles published behind a paywall, and researchers haven’t been able to benefit from the open access publishing advantages previously included in the FinELib agreement.

The impasse in the negotiations stems from disputes over contract terms. FinELib agreements are governed by licensing principles, which serve as a quality assurance for the consortium members. These principles ensure that the agreements align as closely as possible with the needs of higher education and research institutions.

There were extensive efforts to resolve the issues between FinELib and ACS. Many problem areas were resolved, but the negotiations fell into fundamental differences of views on the liability issues between the subscribing organisations and ACS.

"FinELib consortium acquires a significant proportion of the scientific journals needed by Finnish higher education and research institutions. It is therefore essential for the consortium to have shared licensing principles that reflect the consortium’s objectives. These principles provide a strong and unified basis for negotiations with different publishers," says Kalle-Antti Suominen, Vice-Rector of the University of Turku, and Chair of the FinELib Steering Group.

"FinELib consortium and American Chemical Society have had a 20-year collaboration, which unfortunately now comes to an end. It is regrettable that we couldn’t reach an agreement with ACS. FinELib's task is to conclude license agreements that support researchers and research without imposing unreasonable terms on research organizations,” summarizes Arja Tuuliniemi, Head of FinELib Services at the National Library of Finland.

Thanks to FinELib consortium’s previous ACS agreements, researchers and students still have access to many paywalled articles published between 1996–2023. Open access articles are freely accessible to everyone.

For more information, please contact:
Arja Tuuliniemi, Head of FinELib Services, National Library of Finland (arja.tuuliniemi@helsinki.fi)

Negotiations with ACS continue for 2025

19.6.2024

Due to significant disagreements on the agreement terms, there will be no consortium agreement with ACS for the year 2024. However, the negotiations continue with the goal of reaching an agreement for 2025.

Many key issues are still without a solution in the negotiations between American Chemical Society (ACS) and FinELib. The prolonged negotiations are due to significant differences in views regarding the contract terms.

ACS has demanded several significant changes to the agreement, which would e.g. restrict researchers' and students' ability to use ACS journals as part of their research and studies, such as for data mining, and would increase the responsibilities of universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutions.

The FinELib consortium is seeking solutions to these issues in hopes of continuing the agreement with ACS in 2025.

FinELib will provide more updates on the progress of the negotiations during the autumn.

From the beginning of 2024, universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutions have been without a consortium agreement for ACS journals. Thus, researchers and students from the institutions participating the consortium agreement don't currently have access to the ACS articles published behind a paywall in 2024, nor can they take advantage of the open publishing benefits provided by the FinELib agreements when publishing articles in ACS journals.

However, researchers and students still have access to many articles published between 1996 and 2023 thanks to the previous agreements of the FinELib consortium. Articles published open access are also available for everyone.

For more information, please inquire at your organization’s library or information service.

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