For decades libraries paid publishers to read: subscriptions that bought access to content behind paywalls. Open access introduced a second payment, to publish: article-processing charges that make individual articles free to read. Paying both, subscriptions and APCs, to the same publishers risked institutions paying twice over for the same journals. The transformative agreement is the negotiated answer to that double-payment problem, and it has become the dominant mechanism through which large publishers and library consortia manage the transition to open access.
How read-and-publish deals work
A transformative agreement, most commonly structured as a read-and-publish deal, combines the two payments into a single contract between a publisher and an institution or, more often, a consortium of them. Under such a deal, the agreed fee covers both reading access to the publisher’s journals and the open-access publication of articles whose corresponding author belongs to the participating institutions. The crucial effect for authors is that they can publish open access in the covered journals without paying an APC themselves, because the cost has been folded into the central agreement. A related variant, sometimes called publish-and-read, reframes the deal so that the payment is conceived primarily as publishing fees with reading access included, signalling a shift in emphasis from buying access towards buying publication.
The label transformative is deliberate. These agreements are intended to be transitional instruments that progressively move spending from subscription to open access and, ideally, increase the proportion of an institution’s output that is published openly, with the long-term aim of flipping journals fully to open access rather than locking in a permanent hybrid arrangement.
Jisc and the ESAC registry
Negotiating with large publishers individually would leave institutions weak, so this work is done collectively. In the United Kingdom, Jisc negotiates transformative agreements on behalf of UK universities and other members, using the combined weight of the sector to secure terms, control costs and expand open-access publishing rights. Acting as a single counterpart lets the sector push for better conditions than any one library could obtain alone, and it standardises the terms that members receive.
Internationally, the ESAC Initiative maintains a public registry of transformative agreements. The ESAC registry records deals between institutions or consortia and publishers around the world, bringing transparency to what were once confidential contracts and allowing libraries to compare terms, learn from one another’s negotiations and track the spread of these agreements across countries and publishers. ESAC also publishes guidance and reference workflows for managing such agreements, making it a central reference point for the practical mechanics as well as a registry of who has signed what.
The cOAlition S requirements
The policy push behind transformative agreements came substantially from cOAlition S, the group of research funders behind Plan S, whose goal is full and immediate open access to funded research. cOAlition S set out criteria that a transformative arrangement had to meet to be compliant with its policy during the transition, including transparency about the components of the deal, a commitment to increasing the share of open-access content over time, and a defined, time-limited path rather than an open-ended subsidy of the hybrid model. By attaching conditions and an expectation of eventual transition, cOAlition S sought to ensure that these agreements were genuinely a route towards open access rather than a comfortable way for the existing subscription system to persist under a new name. Its support for transformative arrangements was always framed as temporary, on the understanding that they would either deliver transition or be wound down.
The debate: transformation or entrenchment?
Whether transformative agreements are transforming scholarly publishing or entrenching its incumbents is genuinely contested, and serious arguments run both ways.
- The case that they help. They remove the APC barrier for individual authors, increase the volume of immediately open research, bring cost transparency to deals that were once opaque, and create a managed, collectively negotiated path away from pure subscriptions. For an author at a covered institution, the practical experience is straightforward open-access publishing at no personal cost.
- The case that they entrench. Because the deals are struck with the largest established publishers, they can consolidate spending and market share with those incumbents, channelling sector budgets towards a handful of dominant players. Critics argue this risks locking in a pay-to-publish economy that, while open to readers, raises barriers for authors and institutions without the funds to enter such agreements, and that it does little for smaller, independent or fully open-access publishers outside the deals. There is also concern that, rather than transitioning journals fully to open access, the arrangements may simply make hybrid publishing permanent and well-funded.
The honest assessment is that transformative agreements have measurably increased open-access output and brought welcome transparency, while also concentrating spending and raising unresolved questions about equity for authors and publishers outside the major deals. Their original justification was as a bridge, and the open question is whether the sector crosses that bridge to a genuinely transformed, equitable open-access system, or settles in the middle of it. Researchers can engage by understanding their own institution’s agreements, considering the equity implications of where they publish, and supporting the diverse publishing ecosystem, including fully open-access and community-led venues, that a healthy scholarly commons needs. Shared, transparent reporting of who pays what, in the spirit of a CASRAI data dictionary, is part of what makes that engagement possible, as is the broader move towards openness embodied in FAIR data.
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