Last week’s Jisc-published Critical Review of Transitional Agreements suggests that it will take the “big four” publishers 70 years to transition to fully open access if they continue to transition at their current rate.
That is a depressing statistic. I’ll be dead by then.
It’s just one of a number of “highlights” in a report which presents some positives of transitional agreements but startling unintended consequences and a lack of cultural change.
Let’s start with the good stuff. Many of these agreements met the objectives set by the sector, negotiation on the deals was effective with the sector acting together to get better terms. Jisc and HEIs did more deep diving into usage than ever, developed feasible walkaway scenarios and collaborated further so that negotiators had a robust mandate from which to act. The costs of these agreements have, on the whole, reduced or at least been restricted; Jisc estimates, based on the 2024 modelling undertaken, that just over £49m worth of costs will have been avoided.
Authors utilising these agreements have not experienced the friction they have encountered in the past when trying to publish open access articles. Jisc negotiated transitional agreements have provided compliant routes for large numbers of articles in the UK. Most importantly, transitional agreements have become the norm – as of January 2024, Jisc have negotiated 75 such agreements with 47 publishers, with the first one being launched in 2016.
