In recent iterations, fees have been fully converted to open access publishing and are even paid in direct proportion to the number of articles published, showing a clear development of transformative agreements toward systemic change. In this period of transition, some portion of the fees may be paid to a publisher are designated in “reading” fees to acknowledge the access given to the remainder of the publisher’s journal portfolio still behind the paywall, but in all such agreements a substantial portion of the contract fees are attributed to open access publishing services. They may also vary based on the publisher’s capacity to adjust internal administrative processes and production workflows.
While they share a common goal, each agreement is unique and context-specific, taking into consideration the current level of subscription spending, largely based on historical print expenditures, and the relative volume of publication that an institution or consortium has with a given publisher. In transformative agreements hybrid publishing costs are reined in and the revenue flows are shifted: authors no longer pay APCs and, instead, their institutions (via their libraries) repurpose former subscription expenditures to remunerate publishers for their editorial services associated with the open access publication of accepted articles.
Today, under the predominant yet outdated subscription model, libraries pay lump-sum fees for read access to journal packages, and authors wishing to publish open access in an otherwise closed subscription, or “hybrid”, journal pay Article Processing Charges (APCs). Subscribe to Open)-are an important strategy that preserves the academic freedom of authors, while accelerating the transition to open access. In the context of the current scholarly publishing landscape, and in line with the objectives of the Open Access 2020 Initiative, transformative agreements-together with other transitional frameworks, such as those in which ongoing annual fees of institutions are used collectively to convert paywalled journals to open access (e.g. At the same time, TAs offer the negotiating institution and publishers a framework in which the logic, operations, and financial streams of the subscription paywall system can be re-oriented around open access. In this way, the scholarly publishing services and journals valued by authors are preserved, enabling authors to publish their articles immediately open access in the journals of their choice, omitting or, at least, significantly reducing the need for authors to use their grant or institutional research funds to cover open access publishing costs. Consequently, institutions are using the leverage of their current financial investment in scholarly publishing, to negotiate TAs in which their former subscription expenditures are repurposed to cover the costs of open access publishing of, ideally, 100% of the articles produced by their researchers (and reading access to content still behind the paywall).
Transformative agreement negotiations are based on the understanding that the money paid globally in subscription fees is more than enough to cover the costs of open access publishing of today’s scholarly journals. The dual aim of the negotiations is to bring institutional investments in scholarly journal publishing under oversight and control, with an eye to cost reduction, and to drive a transition of scholarly journal publishing to open access.
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These agreements are a significant departure from the previous standard in subscription license agreements, as they bring the two transactional sides of subscription-based journals, reading access (subscription fees paid by libraries) and open access publishing (“hybrid” APCs predominantly paid by authors), under one centrally negotiated agreement. “Transformative agreement” is an umbrella term describing those agreements negotiated between institutions (libraries, national and regional consortia) and publishers in which former subscription expenditures are repurposed to support open access publishing of the negotiating institutions’ authors, thus transforming the business model underlying scholarly journal publishing, gradually and definitively shifting from one based on toll access (subscription) to one in which publishers are remunerated a fair price for their open access publishing services.
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