Agreement is UC’s firstwith a major publisher and Cambridge’s first in the Americas
The University of California and Cambridge University Press have entered into a transformative agreement that will advance the global shift toward an open access future for research.
The agreement is designed to maintain UC’s access to Cambridge’s journals, while also supporting open access publishing for UC authors. The partnership is UC’s first open access agreement with a major publisher, and Cambridge’s first such deal in the Americas.
“This agreement reflects the strong belief among UC facultythat our research should be available not just to the scientific community, butalso to the world at large,” said Dennis Ventry, UC Davis professor of law andvice chair of the Academic Senate UniversityCommittee on Library and Scholarly Communication, the UC’s facultycommittee for topics related to scholarly publishing.
“We are delighted that Cambridge is enthusiastic aboutpartnering with us to ensure that researchers around the world, the taxpayerswho fund our work, and the general public will have immediate and perpetualaccess to the research we do here at the University of California,” Ventryadded.
Under the agreement, UC will have full and permanent access tothe Press’s entire collection of over 400 journals, and open access publishing inCambridge’s journals will be available to authors across the UC’s 10 campuses. Becausethe subscription “reading” fee will go down as UC’s open access publishing goesup, the university will see no significant overall increase to the cost of itscontract. The three-year agreement will allow UC and Cambridge to pilot thisapproach from 2019 through 2021.
“We are absolutely thrilled to see Cambridge’s long-standingpartnership with the University of California deepen with this new agreement,”said Kellie O’Rourke, Cambridge’s Head of Library Sales for the Americas. “It’sa decisive step forward for Cambridge’s vision of a sustainable, open accessfuture for journals publishing in North America, and globally.”
In the last two years Cambridge has also reached open accessdeals with the JISC consortium in the UK, the Bibsam consortium in Sweden, theUKB consortium in the Netherlands and, most recently, with the Bavarian StateLibrary (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, BSB) on behalf of higher education andresearch institutions across Germany.
Chris Bennett, Cambridge’s Global Sales Director, said, “We’revery excited about the significance of this agreement for a sustainable globaltransition to open research and service-based publishing. It underlines ourcommitment to delivering on what researchers need across the diversecommunities we serve. As a university press we are part of the scholarlyecosystem ourselves and are delighted tobe taking this next step in strong partnership with the University ofCalifornia.”
Guided by UC’s faculty-driven principlesfor transforming scholarly communication, the deal will be one of thefirst, and the largest, transformative open access publishing agreements in theUnited States to date. As a public institution, a central tenet of the UC’s mission is to makeknowledge more broadly available and to facilitate new discoveries that buildon the university’s research.
“Transformative open access agreements like this onedirectly support our university’s mission by making it easier for UCresearchers to make their articles freely available to anyone, anywhere in theworld,” said Ivy Anderson, associate executive director of UC’s California DigitalLibrary. “We look forward to working with Cambridge and with our faculty to implementthis innovative pilot, which provides a model for open access publishing thatis uniquely suited to the U.S. academic environment.”
Contacts:
John Clare, Communications Manager for Cambridge UniversityPress
T: +44 (0)1223 326173 / press@cambridge.org
Jessica Nusbaum, UC Davis Library Director of Communicationsand Marketing, for the University of California
T: +1 (530) 752-4145 / jlnusbaum@ucdavis.edu
Notes to editors:
AboutCambridge University Press’s read and publish agreements: CambridgeUniversity Press has made a number of Read and Publish agreements to establishOpen Access publishing in Cambridge journals for publicly-financed researcharticles. Details of these agreements can be found on the Press’s website.
AboutCambridge University Press: Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. Itfurthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit ofeducation, learning and research at the highest international levels ofexcellence. Its extensive peer-reviewed publishing lists comprise 50,000 titlescovering academic research and professional development, as well asschool-level education and English language teaching. Playing a leading role intoday’s international marketplace, Cambridge University Press has more than 50offices around the globe, and it distributes its products to nearly everycountry in the world.
About Open Researchat the Press: As the Open Research movement seeks to unlock the potentialin academic research by making knowledge accessible to all; we believe thatmaking Open Research work for our communities is crucial. Our history,relationship with the University and not-for-profit status creates a strongposition from which we can engage the community, invest in innovative solutionsand play an important role in helping to shape Open Research as it evolves.
About the Universityof California Libraries: Individually and collectively, theUniversity of California libraries provide access to the world’s knowledge forthe UC campuses and the communities they serve, directly supporting UC’smissions of teaching, research, and public service. The University of California libraries, whichinclude some of the world’s most distinctive collections and innovativeservices, comprise the largest university research library in the world.
About the CaliforniaDigital Library: The California Digital Library wasfounded as part of the University of California in 1997 to take advantage ofemerging technologies that were transforming the way digital information wasbeing published and accessed. Since then, in collaboration with the UClibraries and other partners, we have continued to provide transformativedigital library services, grounded in campus partnerships and extended throughexternal collaborations, that amplify the impact of the libraries, scholarship,and resources of the University of California.
About Open Access at the University of California: Open access publishing supports the mission of the University of California by transmitting knowledge more broadly and facilitating new discoveries that build on the university’s research and scholarly work. In 2013 the systemwide faculty Academic Senate endorsed an Open Access Policy that affirmed its commitment to “disseminating its research and scholarship as widely as possible.” Transformative agreements are one of many Pathways to Open Access being pursued at UC, where we believe a diverse open access ecosystem can best serve the needs of the academy and society at large. Learn more about open access at UC.
Tags: Cambridge University Press, Open Access, Publisher Negotiations, UC Libraries
