What is an open access agreement?

Modified on Wed, 4 Jun at 1:11 PM

An open access agreement is a general term used to describe formal arrangements made between publishers and entities such as national governments, library consortia, or individual universities. The primary aim of these agreements is to support and promote open access publishing, where scholarly articles are made freely available to the public without subscription barriers.


Under these agreements, the costs typically associated with open access publishing, such as Article Processing Charges (APCs) are covered either in full or partially by the participating institution or consortium. This means that individual authors do not need to pay out-of-pocket to make their work openly accessible. In some cases, authors may still pay a reduced APC if the agreement includes a discount rather than a full waiver.


These agreements benefit researchers by:

  • Removing financial barriers to open access publishing,

  • Encouraging wider dissemination and visibility of their work,

  • And supporting compliance with funder mandates that require open access.


For more information on Sage's current open access agreements, please see Open Access Agreements at Sage

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