Researcher Essentials

Read and Publish Agreements

What are they?

Read and Publish (R&P) agreements support open scholarly publishing in selected journals. These agreements enable SCU authors to publish open access papers without paying article processing charges.

What this means for you:

SCU corresponding authors will save money. Instead of paying article processing fees, the Library funds open publication through its subscriptions.

IMPORTANT: The R&P agreements only cover open access publishing fees. As part of your journal selection process, always check submission guidelines and any possible costs such as page charges or any other fees on the journal's homepage prior to submitting your manuscript. These other additional publishing fees can be substantial.

How to benefit from these agreements:

• You need to be the corresponding author to take advantage of these agreements.
• Certain article types are excluded, including editorials, news and obituaries.
• Use your SCU email address when submitting your work to participating publishers.
• Make sure you indicate SCU as your primary institutional affiliation.
• If you are a co-author, ensure the corresponding author is from an institution which also has a R&P agreement for your journal.
• After peer review and on acceptance, the publisher will confirm details of the R&P agreement.

Capped agreements

For the capped agreements with Elsevier, Springer and Wiley, the capped article allowance is shared with other universities participating in the agreement. SCU authors can access the shared allowance with availability based on the order of article acceptance across all universities.

Where you can publish:

Publisher	Title List	Conditions	Additional Information
	Title List	Applies to over 380 CUP titles. No limits on number of articles published by an institution. Eligible article types are research articles, review articles, rapid communications, brief reports, and case reports.	Agreement information Step by step guide
	Title List	All CSIRO titles plus 2 society journals. No limits on number of articles published by an institution.	Agreement information
	Title List	Applies to 1649 titles. Capped agreement. There is a publishing limit of 7,138 articles by authors from participating institutions in 2023. Cap progress can be tracked via the Agreement information link. 15% APC discount offer for some journal titles not included in the agreement. Check for eligible titles in the title list.	Agreement information
	Title List	Applies to 924 titles. No limits on number of articles published by an institution. 20% APC discount offer for some journal titles not included in the agreement. Check for eligible titles in the title list.	Agreement information
	Title List	2023 CAP REACHED! The cap will reset 1 Jan 2024. Applies to 1,976 titles, from Springer Nature imprints including Springer, Palgrave, ADIS and Academic Journals on Nature.com. Nature titles are not included. Capped agreement. There is a publishing limit of 3,359 articles by authors from participating institutions in 2023. Cap progress can be tracked via the Agreement information link. Eligible article types are original papers, review papers, brief communication, continuing education.	Agreement information
	Title List	2023 CAP ALMOST EXHAUSTED!  Applies to the majority of Wiley and Hindawi journals. Capped agreement. There is a publishing limit of 6,750 articles by authors from participating institutions in 2023. Cap progress can be tracked via the Agreement information link. Eligible article types are primary research and review articles, case studies, reviews, and short communications.	Agreement information Step by step guide

Choosing a licence

Authors need to choose a Creative Commons licence when publishing under a R&P Agreement. Conservative licences can limit research work and its impact. The more open the licence, e.g. CC BY, the easier it will be for your work to be accessed, read and used. Here is a quote from the Creative Commons website:

Researchers publish to be read, to have impact, and to make the world a better place. To accomplish these important goals, researchers need to enable reuse and adaptations of their research publications and data. They also need to be able to reuse and adapt the publications and data of others (Vézina, 2020, para. 4).

If you have an ARC or NHMRC grant, you may have requirements to open licence some or all of your research outputs. See this page for more information about CC licences.

Don't be afraid of open!

Read this article on the Open Access Australasia website to help you make an informed decision:

Open access licence choices: don't be afraid of open. By Richard White, Manager Copyright & Open Access at University of Otago Aotearoa New Zealand.