Australasian universities strike deal with Elsevier

Australasian universities have agreed terms with the world’s biggest scholarly publisher, averting a looming lockout from over 1,600 academic journals.

The Council of Australasian University Librarians (Caul) said it had reached an in-principle deal with Elsevier after restarting negotiations with the Dutch publishing house.

Caul said the new talks had delivered a “significantly improved” agreement compared to the arrangement on offer before negotiations stalled last month.

“[It] meets many of the key objectives established at the outset…and addresses many of the longstanding issues associated with previous Elsevier agreements,” said Deakin University vice-chancellor Iain Martin, who chairs Caul’s open access negotiation strategy committee.

“Through this agreement, more than 10,000 ANZ research articles will be published openly with Elsevier in 2026.”

The deal comes on top of agreements with Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis. UK universities have likewise recently reached terms with the four major publishers.

Caul said its deal with Elsevier included a “substantial reduction” in the subscription fees the publisher was demanding. It also featured “uncapped hybrid open access publishing across the full Elsevier portfolio, including internationally renowned journals such as Cell Press and The Lancet, and other measures to begin addressing the inequities associated with previous legacy pricing models”.

Some 900 “gold” open access journals are not included in the agreement.

Deakin University librarian Hero Macdonald, chair of Caul’s content procurement committee, said it was unusual for universities to strike large-scale agreements “while maintaining uninterrupted access” for their researchers.

“In most international examples, achievements of this scale have only been secured through significant disruption and multi-year cancellations.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com