As part of the University of Utah’s efforts to prioritize open research, the University Libraries has partnered with the Office of the Vice President for Research to facilitate open-access publishing through a licensing agreement with Elsevier. The agreement allows U of U corresponding authors at the U to publish open-access articles free of charge.

Under the agreement with Elsevier, authors can publish open access in more than 1,800 core hybrid journals. The agreement does not cover publishing in fully open access or gold journals. The U can publish up to 310 articles annually (based on corresponding authors). If the cap is exceeded, authors can publish closed at no cost or pay an article processing charge (APC) to publish open access. Articles accepted for publication starting immediately are eligible.

“After nearly 18 months of off-and-on discussions, it is wonderful to see an agreement of this magnitude come to fruition,” comments Joel Thornton, associate dean for collections and scholarly communication. “Elsevier accounts for approximately 25 % of our total research article output.  Adding open-access publishing to our existing agreement adds significant value for all authors at the U.”

Major open access agreements with Elsevier, Wiley, Oxford University Press and other publishers provide the ability to open nearly 40 % of the U’s journal article research output.

Without these agreements, the U would pay more than $2 million in APC’s annually to fund open access publishing.

Open Access Agreement Overview

Get acquainted with the open access publish agreement, including how your agreement works, which journals are included and the specific workflows for authors.

The list of participating journals in this agreement is updated quarterly. Please check for the latest version on this website.

Supporting Authors on Their Open Access Journey

For guidance on navigating these agreements, please consult Christy Jarvis, associate director scholarly communications, Allyson Mower, scholarly communication and copyright librarian, or your Subject Specialist.

“Our librarians have been so engaged in working to solve the cost issue related to a few of our most used publishers! This accomplishment ensures that authors can more easily publish their research findings. What a feat for the University of Utah!” notes Caren J. Frost, associate vice president for Research Integrity & Compliance at the University of Utah.