Continuation of negotiations with Wiley in 2021

This week, swissuniversities announced the outcome of the Open Access (OA) negotiations with the publisher Wiley (see swissuniversities news release). This year’s negotiations concluded without any Read and Publish deal or temporary agreement. The talks will continue in 2021. Wiley has agreed to a «grace period», meaning that researchers in Switzerland will continue to have access to Wiley journals as long as the negotiations continue. Should the negotiations fail, it is possible that direct access to Wiley articles published from 2021 onwards will be lost; however, post-cancellation access to all licensed Wiley articles published before 2021 is ensured. In case Wiley (or any other publisher) restricts direct access to articles in the future, swissuniversities has published a guide on how to get full text articles.

The Swiss Read and Publish negotiations are part of a wider movement to transform scientific communication to OA. To strengthen the negotiating position of Swiss libraries, a negotiation team commissioned by swissuniversities is negotiating OA agreements with large publishers on behalf of all Swiss institutions of higher education, including Eawag, Empa, PSI and WSL (see negotiation strategy). The negotiation team has been negotiating since 2018 to find an agreement for the Swiss scientific community. This year, they have successfully negotiated Read and Publish deals with Elsevier and Springer Nature. Any Read and Publish agreement should allow researchers to read and publish articles in all the publishers’ journals on an OA basis. In addition, they should come at no extra cost for Swiss authors or research institutes.