swissuniversities and Elsevier Adopt a Pilot Agreement Combining Reading and Publishing

BERN, Switzerland, May 26, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- swissuniversities has adopted a new transformative pilot agreement with Elsevier for research access and open access publishing in Switzerland. The agreement is the result of the negotiations organised by the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries (CSAL) and Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics. Yves Flückiger, President of swissuniversities and head of the negotiation team, said, "We are committed to achieving full open access by 2024 and this agreement is a big step towards that objective."

As a result, all member institutions of swissuniversities and additional CSAL consortium member institutions, as well as their affiliated researchers across Switzerland, will have continued access to the Freedom Collection and ScienceDirect, Elsevier's leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature. Researchers affiliated to CSAL consortium member institutions can access 16 million publications from over 2,500 journals published by Elsevier and its society partners via ScienceDirect. Furthermore, researchers will be able to publish open access across the majority of Elsevier's Gold and Hybrid journals, scaling up to 100 percent by 2023.

This is a key milestone with regard to the national Open Access strategy of swissuniversities, which aims to achieve 100 percent open access by 2024. The four-year agreement is the first time CSAL has signed a national contract with a major publisher and will support all academic and research institutions across Switzerland as they transition to open access.

The agreement has been published and can be accessed on the homepage of the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries.

More information on the scope of the pilot agreement can be found here.

About swissuniversities

swissuniversities is the rectors' conference of the Swiss universities. The umbrella organisation is the common voice of the Swiss universities and promotes cooperation and coordination between the universities and the various types of universities. www.swissuniversities.ch

About the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries

The Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries obtains licenses for scientific resources (electronic journals, e-books and databases). It offers a broad range of services and supports the efforts to establish a national Open Access strategy. It therefore plays an instrumental role in guaranteeing the quality and competitiveness of Switzerland as a university and research hub. www.consortium.ch

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps scientists and clinicians to find new answers, reshape human knowledge, and tackle the most urgent human crises. For 140 years, we have partnered with the research world to curate and verify scientific knowledge. Today, we're committed to bringing that rigor to a new generation of platforms. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, 39,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX, a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. www.elsevier.com

Media contacts

Josefa Haas, Head of Communications
swissuniversities
+41-31-335-07-34
communications@swissuniversities.ch

Fabian Felder
Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries
+41-44-510-16-89
fabian.felder@slsp.ch

Andrew Davis
Elsevier Communications, Europe
+44-7393-242-466
andrew.davis@elsevier.com 

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