Bibsam action plan

Bibsam is the national consortium that negotiates central licence agreements for digital media, scholarly journals and electronic resources on behalf of Swedish university libraries. To enable students and staff access to schlarly information Karlstad University participates in a large number of the agreements negotiated by Bibsam. These agreements also allow researchers at Karlstad University to publish their research as open access without having to pay the often substantial article processing charges (APCs).

Background

The existing read-and-publish agreements that have been in place since 2016 have contributed to an increase in the proportion of openly accessible research. However, Bibsam, along with other stakeholders in the higher education sector, considers the transition to an open scholarly communication system to be progressing too slowly, while the costs borne by libraries and higher education institutions remain unsustainably high.

A New Action Plan

In 2024, Bibsam therefore adopted a new action plan. Its main elements are as follows:

  • Focus on Fully Open Access Journals

Agreements covering both reading access and publishing in so-called hybrid journals will no longer be pursued. Hybrid journals are subscription-based journals in which individual articles can be made open access upon payment of an additional fee. From 2026 onwards, the objective is for new agreements to cover only fully open access journals.

  • Support for New Publishing Models

Promote new routes to open access publishing and alternative business models, and support scholar-led journals that wish to move their publishing activities from traditional commercial publishers to other platforms.

  • Requirements for open licences

Publications should be released under an open licence in accordance with the FAIR principles. Copyright provisions should also be utilised to promote open access, for example through secondary publication, also known as self-archiving.

What Will Be the Impact of the New Action Plan?

Bibsam's new direction will bring both opportunities and challenges.

Among the opportunities are increased support for alternative publishing models, which may enable more research to be published in scholar-led, fee-free journals. Another potential benefit is that requirements for open licences may create greater opportunities for the reuse of research outputs.

The challenges include the following:

  • Researchers who currently publish in hybrid journals may need to identify alternative publishing and funding routes. Researchers will continue to be free to choose their preferred publication venue, but the library may not always be able to provide financial support for publication costs.
  • As the current agreements are phased out, new methods for both funding publication and ensuring access to scholarly journals will need to be developed.
  • During a transitional period, these changes may create uncertainty regarding both publishing agreements and access to scholarly content.

When Will the Changes Take Effect?

The changes will be implemented gradually as existing agreements expire. At present, it is difficult to predict the precise outcome, as much will depend on the results of future negotiations.

The timetable for upcoming agreement negotiations is as follows:

2026: Negotiations for agreements with Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), American Physical Society (APS), and Wiley. New agreements, where applicable, would commence in 2027.

2027: Negotiations for agreements with Cambridge University Press, Emerald, Elsevier, Karger, Royal Society of Chemistry, and SAGE. New agreements, where applicable, would commence in 2028.

2028: Negotiations for agreements with AIP Publishing, Institute of Physics (IOP), Springer Nature, and Taylor & Francis. New agreements, where applicable, would commence in 2029.

Additional information for Authors

  • The availability of publishing agreements does not affect researchers' right to choose their publication venue freely. These agreements provide financial support for publishing; they do not determine where researchers publish.
  • Bibsam's action plan applies to hybrid journals across all disciplines and subject areas.
  • When applying for external research funding, always remember to budget for publication costs, regardless of the agreement landscape at the time of application.
  • The easiest way to find the publishing conditions that apply to a specific journal is through the database Scifree or by browsing our publishing agreements.

Additional information for Readers