Open publishing agreements terminating – cancellations possible

29.11.2023

Seven of FinELib’s current journal agreements will terminate by the end of 2023. Negotiations for new agreements are ongoing, but it’s not certain if new agreements will be reached.

If new agreements are not in place by the end of the year, open publication of articles included in the FinELib agreements with the following publishers will end on December 31st, 2023:

  • American Chemical Society (ACS)
  • Elsevier (ScienceDirect Freedom journals)
  • Emerald
  • Oxford University Press
  • Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)
  • Springer Nature (Springer Compact journals)

FinELib is currently negotiating with all the publishers mentioned above. Negotiations also continue with IEEE, but the article quota for open publication under that agreement has already been used up earlier this year.

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 publication of your article depends on the date of acceptance of your article.

If the publisher/journal accepts your article during 2023, it can be published open access as part of FinELib's current agreement.

If the acceptance of the article falls into 2024, open access publishing can’t be covered by the current agreement. Negotiations for new FinELib agreements might be prolonged into 2024. FinELib’s aim is that articles from early 2024 could be retrospectively published open access, if an agreement is reached later in 2024. However, this depends on the outcome of the negotiations and cannot be guaranteed.

If reaching a new agreement seems likely, FinELib will provide publishers’ guidelines for authors whose articles are accepted for publication in the early 2024 during December/January.

It's also possible that for some publishers, a new agreement won't be reached. In that case, open access publication as part of the FinELib agreement ends on December 31, 2023. From 2024 onwards, you can either publish your article behind a paywall – and "self-archive" by placing a copy of your article in a repository – or you can arrange for the payment of the APC yourself. In these cases, you can check whether your institution has made funding available for paying APCs.

FinELib will provide further information on the status of negotiations during December.

Please check FinELib’s guides for open access publishing under existing FinELib agreements.

I want to read journals from these publishers – how is it possible?

If negotiations with the publisher continue, access to journals is often granted during negotiations, even if the old agreement period has ended. For many publishers, access to journals will continue as usual, even if negotiations extend into 2024.

If negotiations between FinELib and a publisher do not conclude successfully, access to new journal articles published in 2024 will cease. However, for many publishers, access to articles published in 2023 or earlier will remain unchanged, even without a new agreement. This is due to long-term usage rights from previous agreements.

For articles you can no longer access directly from the publisher website, you can seek access by utilizing FinELib's Alternative Access plan or by contacting your organization's library or information service.

Other FinELib agreements for open publication will continue as usual

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

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

FinELib’s agreement with Springer Nature includes the right to publish a limited number of articles open access in Nature Research journal titles. This article quota has been used up.