The University of California has announced three new systemwide open access (OA) agreements, making it easier and more affordable for UC researchers to publish in more than 500 additional academic journals:

• Oxford University Press
• Copernicus
• American Society for Microbiology 

Transformative agreements provide a way for institutions to maintain access to scholarly content available only through subscription, while supporting the transition to OA publishing by their affiliated researchers. Institutions are, in effect, redirecting their expenditures on subscriptions to cover the OA article publication charges.

The new agreements expand UC’s partnerships with publishers and advance the university’s efforts to empower more of its authors to share their research freely with the world.

Oxford University Press

The 10-campus UC system, 20 of 23 California State University (CSU) campuses, and 30 private academic and research institutions represented by the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) have reached a comprehensive four-year OA agreement with Oxford University Press (OUP), the largest university press publisher of open research. 

The agreement provides the UC community with reading access to OUP journals and financial support to UC corresponding authors who publish their work open access. Authors at all 10 UC campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) are eligible for this support.
Under the agreement, the UC libraries provide financial support to UC corresponding authors for the payment of OA publishing fees, also known as article processing charges (APCs).

Key Details

• Agreement term: February 4, 2025 – December 31, 2028
• UC corresponding authors who publish open access in OUP hybrid (subscription) journals receive an automatic $1,000 contribution towards the APC, along with the option to receive full coverage of the APC for authors who lack research funds to pay the remainder. 
• UC corresponding authors who publish in OUP’s fully OA journals receive an automatic $750 contribution towards the APC.

For more details, see the FAQ on the OUP agreement.

Copernicus Publications

Effective January 1, 2025, the UC and the OA publisher Copernicus Publications entered into a one-year OA agreement. Under the agreement, the UC Libraries will automatically cover 50% of the OA fees (i.e., APCs) for all UC corresponding authors who choose to publish in one of 26 journals included in the agreement. 

Many institutional OA agreements have so far focused on subscription publishers that are transitioning to open access. UC believes that these types of agreements can and should include native OA publishers such as Copernicus, as they are already aligned with current and emerging OA policies and mandates, as well as UC’s guidelines for open access publisher agreements. UC seeks to partner with publishers of all types, sizes and disciplines to jointly advance a worldwide transition to open access across the scholarly publishing landscape.

Key Details

• Agreement term: January 1, 2025 – December 31, 2026. The agreement is retroactive to January 1, 2025; authors will have already seen the agreement applied to their APCs since then.
• Authors receive an automatic 50% discount; this is a flat fee model with no multipayer option.

For more details, see the FAQ on the Copernicus agreement.

American Society for Microbiology

Effective January 1, 2025, the UC and the OA publisher the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) entered into a three-year agreement that provides financial support to UC corresponding authors who publish in ASM’s six primary research subscription-based ASM journals. Authors at all 10 UC campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) are eligible for this support.

The agreement covers the full amount of the OA publishing fees (i.e., APCs) for UC corresponding authors who publish in ASM journals. Authors are also eligible for discounts on standard page charges and supplemental material fees.

Key Details

• Agreement term: January 1, 2025 – December 31, 2027
• Authors receive automatic full coverage of the APCs in six ASM subscription journals
• The agreement follows ASM’s Subscribe-to-Open model.

For more details, see the FAQ on the ASM agreement.

About the University of California Libraries and Open Access at UC

Individually and collectively, the UC libraries provide access to the world’s knowledge for the UC campuses and the communities they serve, directly supporting UC’s missions of teaching, research and public service. OA publishing supports the mission of the UC by transmitting knowledge more broadly and facilitating new discoveries that build on the university’s research and scholarly work. UC generates nearly 10 percent of all research output in the United States; half of which is eligible for OA publishing under one of the university’s 17 transformative agreements. Learn more about open access at UC.