Publisher Open Access Agreements

Publisher Open Access Agreements, also known as ‘Transformative Agreements’ or ‘Read and Publish’ agreements, combine an institution’s journal subscription and Open Access (OA) publishing costs into a single payment, reducing the need for the payment of individual Article Processing Charges (APCs) for each article. Instead, all RVC corresponding authors can publish OA in over 6500 journals at no cost, and at a discounted rate in an additional 1000 journals.

Important

To be eligible for free/discounted OA under the agreements the RVC author must:

  • be the corresponding author
  • use their RVC email address on the paper and during the submission process (e.g. name@rvc.ac.uk)
  • use their RVC affiliation, providing the College’s ROR ID (https://ror.org/01wka8n18) where the publisher’s submission system accepts this
  • use their ORCID ID, if they have one and the publisher’s submission system accepts this
  • Select the CC BY licence when asked; this is the licence required by the vast majority of funders (e.g. UKRI, REF, Wellcome) and preferred by the College. If you feel your work needs a more restrictive licence, please contact PublicationsRepos@rvc.ac.uk 

Some agreements cover a publisher’s hybrid and fully OA journals (for info on the distinction please see our Introduction to Open Access), whilst others only cover hybrid titles, and others provide free OA publishing in their hybrid titles and discounted APCs in their fully OA titles. We appreciate this can be confusing so have provided full details for each of our agreements below and have included the details of the discount at the specific journal level within our lists of journals covered by our agreements.

What journals are covered by the agreements?

To search for journals by title you can use our new Publisher Agreement Journal Finder tool.

To view all journals covered by all of our agreements in a single document please consult the spreadsheet here: RVC TA Titles 2025.

The previous version of this spreadsheet can be downloaded here, if preferred.

We currently have agreements with the following publishers and full details for each agreement can be found below.

Bioscientifica

This agreement offers unlimited OA publishing in Bioscientifica's four hybrid journals, published on behalf of the Society for Endocrinology and the Society for Reproduction and Fertility.

To find journals covered by this agreement please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Unlimited OA publishing across CUP’s complete collection.

To find journals covered by this agreement please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

The Company of Biologists

Unlimited OA publishing in Company of Biologists' hybrid and fully OA journals. Follow this step-by-step guide for advice on the submission process.

To find journals covered by this agreement please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

Elsevier

Unlimited OA publishing in Elsevier’s Core Hybrid, Cell Press, and The Lancet journals.

15% discount on OA publishing in Elsevier's fully OA titles.

To find journals covered by this agreement please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

If you need support to publish under the agreement please contact publicationsrepos@rvc.ac.uk

Microbiology Society

Unlimited OA publishing in across the full Microbiology Society portfolio. Submission guidelines have been provided by the Society.

To find journals covered by this agreement please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

Peer J

PeerJ funding is available from our institutional plan to pay for Basic Memberships. Memberships last for life and allow you to publish one article per year in PeerJ, as long as all authors on a paper have a Membership. Please claim for your membership on this page when your article has been accepted for publication and complete the email verification: https://peerj.com/institutions/58/the-royal-veterinary-college/.

If you need support to publish under the agreement please contact publicationsrepos@rvc.ac.uk

Public Library of Science (PLOS)

Unlimited OA publishing in a subset of seven PLOS journals.

To find journals covered by this agreement please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

Portland Press

Unlimited OA publishing across all titles.

To find journals covered by this agreement please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

Royal Society

Unlimited OA publishing across all titles.

For journal by journal instructions please see:

To find journals covered by this agreement please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

Springer

RVC has two agreements with Springer: Springer Nature Read and Publish 2023-2025 and Springer Nature Fully Open Access Agreement 2023-2025.

The former provides unlimited OA publishing in all Springer Nature hybrid titles within the Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, and Nature Research portfolios. The Springer Nature Fully Open Access Agreement 2023-2025 provides a 15% discount on APCs in Springer Nature's fully OA journals.

To find journals covered by these agreements, including details of whether OA is free or discounted, please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

If you need support to publish under the agreement please contact publicationsrepos@rvc.ac.uk 

Wiley

Unlimited OA publishing in Wiley’s hybrid and fully OA titles.

The submission process differs slightly depending on whether you’re submitting to a hybrid or fully OA journal.

Please consult Wiley’s guidelines:

  • Make your article open access within a hybrid journal
  • Publishing Your Article in a Fully Open Access Journal

To find journals covered by this agreement please use our Publisher Agreement Journal Finder, or consult the RVC TA Titles 2025 spreadsheet to view all titles from all agreements.

If you need support to publish under the agreement please contact publicationsrepos@rvc.ac.uk 

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