Library Research Support Services
Transformative agreements ("Read & Publish" deals) are an evolution of the Library's agreements with some publishers, gradually shifting from subscriptions to open publishing. The annual agreement will cover the costs of open charges per article meaning no fees for authors for journals covered in these agreements.
Read & Publish Agreements for UoP authors
These agreements are open to all University of Plymouth corresponding authors regardless of funding status, unless otherwise specified in the description. These agreements are for the outputs of research conducted at Plymouth which should be attributed to the University.
The University's Read & Publish agreeements apply to a limited number of existing subscription agreeements only. There has been no new funding stream allocated for Open Access publishing. There is no central fund for open access payments and no requirement or expectation from funders or the University that outputs should be published Gold Open Access over any other open access route.
Please contact openresearch@plymouth.ac.uk with any queries.
Transformative deal eligibility requirements
- Corresponding authors must be affiliated with UoP (NB: for Wiley this must be the Responsible Corresponding Author)
- Authors must submit with their UoP email address
- Authors must choose CC-BY licence (not any other CC option)
- Authors should submit their ORCiD
Is my journal included these deals?
Journal look up tool
The journals covered in the agreements below can searched for in JISC's Transitional Agreement Look Up tool. Select UoP as the institution and search for your journal - if there is a match, OA can be achieved on the publisher site at no cost:
ACM Read and Publish Agreement
Publisher: ACM
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2025.
- Once an article is accepted, the corresponding author can select the option for Gold Open Access on the Author Services Dashboard - choosing Plymouth as your institution automatically applies the deal N.B. institutional email address must be used.
- ACM instructions on corresponding author: "The corresponding author designation must be made in the conference or journal submission system and the corresponding author must include their primary affiliation and use their institutional email address. The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may additionally be stated. ACM will not update or change addresses after publication of the article."
- The Library is automatically notified of your request with no further steps for the author.
| Journals covered: |
All journals: hybrid & fully gold open access titles "All ACM conferences, journals, and magazines, for which ACM manages production and rights, are eligible for Open Access publishing" |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors Article Types: Research and Review Articles, Short Paper, Survey Articles, Technical Notes, Tutorials, Interviews, Notes. |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
Instructions:
- During Submission via ACS Paragon Plus, as a corresponding author, select your institution from a drop-down box and use your affiliated university email address.
- Check that your institution affiliation is stated in the body of the manuscript as the corresponding author’s affiliation.
- Complete the Journal Publishing Agreement to publish open access and retain copyright.
- The Library will be alerted of your request
| Journals covered: | All journals: hybrid and fully gold open access titles |
| Eligibility: | University of Plymouth corresponding authors |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Publisher: American Psychological Association(APA)
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31st July 2026.
- Submit your manuscript via the submission portal of the selected journal. Upon submission, the corresponding author must provide funder information and a Ringgold affiliation ID (for Plymouth, this is 6633).
- If the submission is accepted, the author will be ushered through an open access and copyright approval process.
| Journals covered: | All hybrid titles (fully gold open access titles are not covered in this agreement) |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors Article Types: Original peer-reviewed research article or review articles |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Publisher: BMJ
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2025.
- The University of Plymouth corresponding author should request Gold OA from the publisher at the point of manuscript submission. They must clearly state their UoP affiliation.
- The Library is notified of the request and can approve it via a publisher dashboard.
- APCs for eligible funded articles will be deducted from a consortium publishing fund on a first-come-first served basis. In order to meet funder requirements, Wellcome funded articles will continue to be covered even if the cap on this fund is met.
| Journals covered: |
The BMJ agreement covers specific hybrid access titles only which can be subject to change - fully gold open access titles are not covered. See BMJ guidance on which journals are eligible for UoP authors: BMJ Author Hub: Open access agreements for the UK |
| Eligibility: |
Funded University of Plymouth corresponding authors only Please note this is the only read & publish agreement we have which is limited to funded authors (limited to UKRI, specific Charity-funded or Wellcome) Article Types: Original, primary research articles only |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | No - only submissions from funded authors are covered by the agreement |
Cambridge University Press Read & Publish agreement
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2025.
- More information and instructions can be found on the CUP website.
| Journals covered: | All journals: hybrid and fully gold open access titles. Authors can check a title is covered: Journals covered by CUP Read & Publish agreement |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors. Article Types: Original research: research articles, Rapid communications, Review articles, Brief Reports, Case Reports. See CUP's list of article type definitions for more information. |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes - any UoP author can use this deal |
Publisher: Elsevier
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2025.
- Once your article has been accepted for publication, you will receive an email containing a link to the “post-acceptance author journey”. Upon selecting your publishing options, your affiliation will be validated by the University, and you will be informed if the APC will be covered by the agreement.
- The process is straightforward, but an instructional video can be found here: Selecting Gold open access through Elsevier's read & publish agreement
| Journals covered: |
Elsevier hybrid titles only, including Cell Press & Lancet titles (fully gold open access titles are not covered in this deal) If you are not sure if the journal is hybrid or gold, search for hybrid Elsever journals here (if the search yields a result, the journal in question is eligible for the deal). |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors Article Types: The deal covers Research and Review articles, Case Reports, Data in Brief, Microarticle, Original Software Publication, Protocol, Replication Study, Short Communication, Short Survey, Video Article, Practice Guideline. For Cell Press and Lancet journals, there may be other restrictions - see https://www.elsevier.com/open-access/agreements/jisc, under "What article types does the agreement cover?". |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Geological Society Lyell Collection Jisc Transitional Agreement
Publisher: Geological Society’s Lyell journal collection
This agreement period is until 31 December 2027.
| Journals covered: | See specific list of titles below |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? |
Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
| Article types covered: | All article types covered |
Journals covered:
- Journal of the Geological Society
- Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology
- Petroleum Geoscience
- Geoenergy
- Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis
- Scottish Journal of Geology
- Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society
- Special Publications
- Memoirs
- Engineering Geology Special Publications
- Earth Science, Systems and Society (new for 2026)
- GeoHorizons Book Series (new for 2026)
Our subscription agreement with IEEE for read-access also allows for immediate Green Open Access with rights retained by authors. Please note that there is no Read & Publish agreement for 'Gold' open access fee-free publishing on the publisher site. The subscription agreement allows authors publishing in hybrid access/closed access titles to:
- deposit their Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) via Pure > PEARL with no embargo period and licenced CC BY (copyright of authors) to achieve immediate open access of this version.
IOP Transformative and Institutional Open Access Agreements
Publisher: IOP
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2025 and will not be renewed.
- Author should state their affiliation clearly within both the article submission form and the article itself.
- IOP will identify eligible manuscripts at submission and automatically apply Gold OA.
- The author will be notified of this during the peer review process and will be asked to agree to the CC-BY open access license.
| Journals covered: |
All hybrid and fully gold open access titles, with the exception of those published on behalf of the American Astronomical Society. |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors Article Types: All primary research article types as well as reviews: Letters, Papers, Reviews and Special Issue articles. |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Microbiology Society Publish and Read
Publisher: Microbiology Society
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2026.
- Any article published in Society journals where the corresponding author is from a Publish and Read institution will be OA by default.
- The final text will be deposited to the Pubmed Central repository immediately upon acceptance.
| Journals covered: | Specific list below |
| Eligibility: | University of Plymouth corresponding authors |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Journals covered:
Publisher: Springer Nature
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2025.
- The author guide can be found here: Author guide.
- After acceptance, corresponding authors publishing with University of Plymouth affiliation will be presented with confirmation from the publisher that they can publish OA with the fees covered by UoP.
| Journals covered: |
Hybrid Nature and Nature Research branded journals (fully gold open access journals are not covered in this deal). Springer journals are not covered. |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors Article Types: Original papers (which is the only applicable article type for Nature Portfolio journals.) |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Oxford University Press Read & Publish agreement
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2025.
- More instructions on how to use this agreement can be found on the OUP website.
| Journals covered: | All hybrid and fully gold open access journals though some Society titles may be excluded: View eligible journal list |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors Article Types: Research and review articles |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Sage Read & Publish Agreements
Publisher: Sage
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2025 and will be renewed in January 2026.
| Journals covered: | All hybrid titles: including IMechE, IOS and Royal Society of Medicine. See SAGE website for more information on journals covered (fully gold open access journals are not covered in this deal) |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors Article Types: The deal excludes some article types, for example book reviews and commercially sponsored articles. |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Guide to the deal with Taylor & Francis
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31 December 2025 and will be renewed in January 2026.
- The author does not need to do anything further to be eligible.
| Journals covered: |
All hybrid and fully gold open access titles (except Dove Press and Expert Medicine series). The deal also includes F1000 and Routledge Open. |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth corresponding authors Article Types: Original research articles (including Reviews, Reports, etc). Other types of paper, such as Editorials, Announcements, and Book Reviews, are not covered by this agreement. |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
Jisc/Wiley Open Access Agreement
Wiley have implemented a 'Responsible Corresponding Author' status for authors. In order to qualify for the read & publish deal, the RCA must have University of Plymouth affiliation.
Publisher: Wiley
Instructions:
- This agreement period is until 31st December 2025 and will be renewed in January 2026.
- Once your article is accepted, the corresponding author is able to select the option for Gold Open Access on the Author Services Dashboard - choosing Plymouth as your institution automatically applies the deal.
- The Library is automatically notified of your request with no further steps for the author.
| Journals covered: | All hybrid and fully gold open access journals. |
| Eligibility: |
University of Plymouth "Responsible Corresponding Authors" Article Types: Research and Review Articles |
| Are unfunded researchers covered? | Yes, any UoP author can currently use this deal |
