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Open access and rights retention

Read and publish agreements: what are they?

When publishing a journal article as gold open access, the publisher will usually charge the author or their institution or funder an Article Processing Charge (APC) to cover publication costs.

The Library has read-and-publish agreements (also known as transitional or transformative agreements) with some publishers.  These agreements cover both subscription payments (the “read” element) and also article processing charges (the “publish” element).  They enable SHU authors to publish gold open access without further fees in journals that are part of the agreements (eligibility criteria apply). 

The negotiations for read-and-publish agreements, are usually undertaken on behalf of UK universities by JISC Collections. Details of these read and publish agreements can be found below.

If the journal you wish to publish in is not covered by one of the SHU read-and-publish agreements, you can request support with the costs from the SHU Open Access Fund.  Please see our page on applying for support with open access for more information.

The read-and-publish agreements listed below cover the cost of publishing Gold Open Access for current SHU corresponding authors. 

Please check the details of the agreement of interest.  The agreement may have restrictions on the journals that are included, types of articles that are eligible, funder and author eligibility.  

The Library Research Support Team can advise you about eligibility for these agreements.

 Email: library-research-support@shu.ac.uk

American Institute of Physics

Agreement

What you need to do

SHU corresponding authors can publish open access in AIP hybrid subscription journals without paying an article processing charge (APC).

You can find out more about this agreement on the AIP read and publish agreement for authors page.

Please check the eligibility requirements.

You will be asked to select your institutional affiliation as part of the submission process. Select the option “Open Access as part of an Institutional agreement.” If your article is eligible, it will then be tagged to be published open access. You must also use your SHU email address.

Please select a CC BY licence.

Licence options: CC BY or CC BY-NC. If you are offered a choice, please select a CC BY licence.

Ends: 31st December 2025

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM Open)

Agreement

What you need to do

SHU corresponding authors can publish research articles Open Access in ACM journals, conference proceedings, and magazines at no additional cost.

Please see the list of ACM Publications Eligible for Open Access Publishing Under ACM Open.

For more information please see the ACM Open web pages.  Please check that your article type is eligible.  For example, Abstracts, Editorials, Invited talks and Opinions are NOT eligible.

Please check the eligibility requirements

The primary affiliation of the corresponding author must be stated as Sheffield Hallam University on submission and throughout the process.

Please make sure you use your SHU email address when you submit and throughout the process. If the corresponding author's email is not an eligible SHU email address, the paper will not be eligible to be part of the ACM Open Program.

Following acceptance for publication, you will be notified if your article falls under the ACM Open agreement and you will be asked to complete an eRights form. In the eRights form, the 'institutionally paid open access' option should be selected. Please choose a CC BY licence.

Licence options:  There is a choice of Creative Commons Licences.  Please choose a CC BY licence.

End date: 31st December 2025

BMJ Journals

Agreement  What do you need to do

Open Access fees are covered by the agreement for SHU corresponding authors publishing funded research (see eligible funders below) in any of  the eligible journals (see list below).   Please check your research meets the following criteria :

  • a SHU author must be the corresponding author.
  • your research must be funded by the UKRI (MRC, EPSRC, AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC, NERC, STFC, Innovate UK, Research England),  British Heart Foundation, Blood Cancer UK, Cancer Research UK, Parkinson’s UK, Versus Arthritis or the Wellcome Trust.
  • you must be publishing in one of the eligible journals.  To see the BMJ journal titles that are covered, please check on the BMJ UK agreement website.
  • eligible articles are original research articles only.

Full costs are payable if the eligibility requirements are not met and in journals not covered by this deal.

Please check the full eligibility requirements and list of what you need to do, on the BMJ UK agreement website.

You must clearly state your affiliation with SHU in your submission and you must use your SHU email address.  You will also need to provide your grant details.

Please select a CC BY licence.

Licences available: CC BY

Ends: 31st December 2025.

Cambridge University Press

Agreement 

What you need to do

SHU corresponding authors can publish Gold Open Access within hybrid and fully open access journals in the  CUP Complete Journals Collections (this is not all CUP journals).

A list of the journals included in the deal is on the CUP OA agreement – JISC UK webpage.

Your article must be an eligible article type.  These are: Research, Review Articles and Rapid Communications (RRR), Brief Report, and Case Reports article types.

Full costs are payable in CUP journals not covered by this deal and if your article does not meet the eligibility requirements.

Please check the eligibility requirments.

You must use your SHU institutional address and email address when submitting your article.

CUP will email you ask you on acceptance to let you know that you are eligible to make your article Open Access at no cost to you.

They will send you a link to a form ‘Convert your article to Open Access’ which you need to complete and which will require you to select a Creative Commons licence to apply to your work.

Please select a CC BY licence 

Licences offered: A choice of Creative Commons licenses is offered.  Please select a CC BY licence.

Ends: 31st December 2025

Elsevier, Cell Press, Lancet

Agreement

What you need to do

This agreement enables SHU submitting corresponding authors to publish Gold Open Access in eligible hybrid journals from Elsevier and eligible hybrid titles in the Cell Press and The Lancet journal collections. 

Please check that the journal you intend to submit to is eligible.  Included journals can be found on this page: Elsevier journals participating in the agreement. 

Please also check these Elsevier agreement FAQs for the article types that are covered.

Elsevier fully Open Access journals are not covered by this agreement and costs are payable.  Please see this information about funding for Open Access fees for information about support with costs and discounts that may apply.

The agreement does not cover any submission fee, page charges or colour charges.

Find out more about the Elsevier-UK Institutions Agreement.

Please check the eligibility requirements and note that fully open access journals are NOT covered.

Make sure your SHU affiliation is clear and that you use your SHU email address when submitting.

Once your article has been accepted for publication in a participating journal, you will receive an email containing a link to the “post-acceptance author journey”. Upon selecting your publishing options, your affiliation will be validated, and you will be informed if the APC will be covered by the agreement.

Please select a CC BY licence.

Licences offered: All Elsevier-owned journals included in the agreement support a CC-BY license.  Please select the CC BY licence option.  A small number of third party owned journals included in the agreement do not offer a CC-BY license.  If your funder mandates Open Access ith a CC BY licence please check that this is available for your chosen journal.

Ends: 31st December 2025

IOP Publishing (Institute of Physics)

Agreement What you need to do

SHU corresponding authors can publish Gold Open Access in eligible hybrid journals from the IOP without charge.

This deal applies to primary research paper, special issue, letter and review article types.

Please check the eligible journals for SHU authors and further details on the IOP OA for the UK page.

Full costs are payable if the eligibility requirements are not met and in journals not covered by this deal.

Please check the eligibility requirements.

When submitting your article please supply your SHU affiliation clearly in the article submission form and in the article itself. Please also use your SHU email address. IOP will identify qualifying articles from this information. 

  • If your article is identified you will be notified during the peer-review process or shortly after acceptance, and your paper will automatically be opted in to open access.

  • You will be asked to agree to the open access license.

Licences offered: CC BY

Agreement ends 31st December 2025.

Open Library of Humanities

Agreement What you need to do

The Open Library of Humanities does not charge fees to any authors for publishing Open Access in OLH journals. The costs are paid by a consortium of supporters which includes SHU.

No funding is required and you do not need to do anything in order to publish free with Open Library of Humanities.

Please select a CC BY licence.
Licences offered: Please check the options offered by your chosen journal.  If your funder mandates Open Access with a CC BY licence please check that this is available for your chosen journal.

Royal Society of Chemistry

Agreement What you need to do

This agreement enables SHU submitting corresponding authors to publish Gold Open Access in RSC hybrid journals with no additional costs.

Peer reviewed articles are eligible for publication in this agreement fall into three main types: full papers, communications, and reviews. Editorials and corrections are not covered under this agreement.

Please check the eligibility requirements.

To ensure that you are identified as eligible for this agreement by the RSC, please do the following:

  • make sure you are the corresponding author as designated in the author submission workflow and in your manuscript.
  • You must use your official SHU email address.

On acceptance of your article, choose the Gold Open Access publishing route.  You will then be asked to select a licence. 

Please select a CC BY licence.

Licences offered:  CY BY or CC BY-NC.  Please select a CC BY licence 

Ends: 31st December 2025. 

Sage, IMechE, Royal Society of Medicine

Agreement 

What you need to do

SHU corresponding authors publishing an article in subscription journals in the current SAGE Premier package, as well as in the IMechE Journal Collection and the Royal Society of Medicine Collection, which offer hybrid open access publishing (SAGE Choice) can be published open access, without paying an article-processing charge. Lists of the eligible journals can be found on the Sage UK JISC agreement page.

Please note there are some subscription journals from Sage that do not offer the Sage Choice option.

The agreement covers “Article type” papers (some commercially sponsored articles, invited articles, book reviews and other content types are excluded).

Sage fully Open Access journals are not covered by this agreement, but a 20% discount is offered to SHU corresponding authors.  To apply for support with the costs, please see our page about funding for Open Access fees.

Please check the other eligibility requirements.

On submission, you must make sure your Sheffield Hallam University institutional affiliation is clear and use your institutional email address.

As soon as your accepted article has been received by SAGE’s Production department, SAGE will contact you to use the SAGE Open Access Portal to take up the offer of free Open Access.  You will need to accept the offer within 2 weeks.

Please select a CC BY licence.

Licence offered: A choice of Creative Commons licence is offered, including CC BY.  Please select a CC BY licence 

Ends 31st December 2025

Springer Nature

Agreement What you need to do

Articles from SHU corresponding authors in eligible Springer, Palgrave and Nature hybrid journals can be made available via ‘Gold’ Open Access without additional cost. Lists of the eligible hybrid journals are available on the Open Access agreement for UK authors site in the lists 'Springer portfolio journals' and 'Nature portfolio journals'.

For Springer portfolio hybrid journals, the following article types are covered: original paper/research paper, review paper, brief communication, continuing education. When publishing in a Nature Portfolio hybrid journal, original paper is the only applicable article type.

The Springer website list Fully Open Access journals as part of the agreement, but the costs of publishing in these journals are not covered and have to be paid. The agreement does bring the benefit of a 15% discount.  Please see this information about funding for Open Access fees for information about applying for support with the costs.

Please check the eligibility requirements and note that  the costs in fully Open Access journals are NOT covered.

Please check that the journal you are submitting to is a hybrid journal where the costs are already covered.

In order to take advantage of this agreement, please make sure your institutional affiliation is clear and that you use your University email address when submitting your article.

Please select a CC BY licence.

 

Licences offered: CC BY

Ends: 31st December 2025

Wiley, Hindawi

Agreement

What you need to do

This agreement, covers the cost of article processing charges in Wiley journals and applies to articles by SHU corresponding authors who must be the "responsible corresponding author" and to primary research and review articles. Please note that letters and editorials, etc. are excluded.

The agreement means you can publish Open Access in a Wiley or Hindawi fully gold open access journal or a Wiley hybrid (subscription) journal that offers open access when the eligibility requirements are met

More information and lists of journals included are available on the Wiley Open access agreement for authors at eligible UK institutions pages.

Please check the eligibility requirements.

You must use your SHU email address and affiliation.

Please see the relevant guide from Wiley:

How to publish in a fully Open Access journal

How to publish in a hybrid Open Access journal

Licence options: Journals offer a choice of Licence.  Please select a CC BY licence where available.   If your funder mandates Open Access with a CC BY licence please check that this is available for your chosen journal.

Ends: 31st December 2025

Don't see your publisher here?

If a read-and-publish agreement with your journal publisher is not listed above, there are options to enable you to make your work Open Access.

1. You can publish your article in a subscription-based journal and make the Author Accepted Manuscript of your article available to download from the institutional repository, SHURA. The SHU Research Publications and Copyright Policy, introduced in October 2022 enables you to retain your rights and to make your manuscript Open Access on SHURA from the day of first publication under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.  Find out more about how to do this on our pages about Open Access and rights retention.

2. You can publish your article Gold Open Access* in a hybrid journal (a subscription journal that offers a Gold Open Access option) or publish in a fully Open Access journal, by paying an Article Processing Charge (APC). Your library has an Open Access Fund which can pay for these charges. Please apply for funding by filling out a form before you submit your paper.

 

* Gold Open Access means the final published version (also known as the version of record) is Open Access on the journal website under one of the Creative Commons licences.