MDPI Joins Forces with Other Open Access Publishers in Calling for Fully OA Agreements

MDPI has joined forces with six other publishers in the OASPA Fully OA Journal Publishers Interest Group, recommending a shift of the focus away from 'transformative agreements' and similar arrangements as the most immediate model for achieving the transition to open access. The group just released a guest post at OASPA, the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association, in which it calls for more attention for cooperation between institutions and Fully OA publishers.

Publishers who started out as open access publishers some ten or twenty years ago have played a major role in moving scientific publishing away from a subscription-based model and making open access the most widely accepted model, rather than the exception. Focusing exclusively on 'Publish and Read' deals between subscription publishers and institutions comes at the expense of neglecting the publishers whose articles have been free to read from the start. At MDPI, we are convinced that Fully OA publishers continue to offer the highest level of transparency and experience in publishing with Open Access.

We encourage institutions to work out Fully OA Agreements with open access publishers, as part of a more balanced approach to working towards open research strategies, and in doing so give researchers more choice in where to publish. At MDPI, we are happy to continue the conversation with universities and institutions to help provide information and help them achieve their goals through and benefit from open access.

About the OASPA Fully OA Journal Publishers Interest Group

The group of Open Access publishers first took shape at the 2019 OASPA Conference in Copenhagen, during an informal exchange of views on the state of the transition to Open Access in scholarly publishing. The involved Fully OA publishers identified a common set of values and a shared view of how to support communities in progressing towards a fully Open Access world. Six of the signatories of the current guest post released a joint position paper in March 2020, making the point that 'transformative agreements' were lacking the binding commitment to a full transformation to Open Access and adding to bureaucratic burden, by forcing all the consortia to reach agreements with every single publisher.

Contact: Oliver Hill, MDPI Institutional Open Access Program Manager (email)