Stockholm University's central support for open access is managed by the university library. The library pays for scientific articles published under publisher agreements as well as for articles in fully open access journals. Stockholm University's open access costs for 2023 amounted to SEK 28,903,123.

According to Stockholm University's (SU) open science policy, the university's research results and data should be published with an open license whenever possible. In 2023, 90% of all articles with a "corresponding author" from SU were published with open access.

License and Publishing Costs 2023

Stockholm University Library (SUB) covers the publishing costs for articles (APC, Article Publishing Charges) published under one of the library's read" and publish" agreements and for individual articles in journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

In the current scientific publishing landscape, universities must pay both for open access to articles and for licenses for reading access to locked articles. In 2023, Stockholm University paid SEK 28,903,123 for 1,094 open-access articles. Including the costs for e-journals, the total sum reached SEK 41,034,120.

The chart below shows a breakdown of the publishers where the combined costs for e-journals (reading rights, red) and open access publishing (blue) were highest in 2023, including publishers with only open-access journals.

The four largest publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis) accounted for 65% of the total reading and publishing costs, nearly SEK 26.7 million.

Publisher Agreements

SUB has nearly 40 publisher agreements that include publishing. Most agreements are signed via the Bibsam Consortium, but in 2023, SUB also had its own agreements with the American Society for Microbiology, American Physiological Society, Cogitatio, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, and SciPost. In 2023, these agreements covered 96% of the articles published openly at SU.

Read more about SUB's agreements and terms: su.se/apc

Book Publishing Charges

SUB does not cover BPCs (Book Publishing Charges) or book chapters. In 2023, SU departments paid SEK 762,111 for BPCs.

Alternative Publishing Models

SUB follows the development of alternative publishing models without APCs. One example is "Subscribe to Open" (S2O), a model where publishers make a journal volume openly accessible if they receive enough income from subscriptions. In 2023, SUB paid SEK 621,960 for S2O and similar models.

Other Support for Open Access at SUB

Stockholm University Press is managed by SUB and is a researcher-driven publisher that publishes openly accessible, peer-reviewed books and journals.

Read more about Stockholm University Press.

SUB contributes a project leader for a Nordic collaboration aimed at promoting open access e-book publishing without BPCs, known as "diamond" publishing.

SU Dynamica - SUstainable publishing is a new publishing platform where researchers can publish openly without cost and have their articles peer-reviewed. The articles receive a DOI and will eventually be registered in DiVA.

Read more about Dynamica.

Would you like to learn more? Contact the open access team: openaccess@su.se