The academic open access publisher Frontiers and the ZB MED – Information Centre for Life Sciences concluded a transformative framework agreement for Germany. Under the flat-fee model of the agreement – a one-off annual flat fee per institution of approximately 2,500 $ for the year 2024 – authors from over 900 research centres and libraries can publish an unlimited number of peer-reviewed articles in all gold OA journals of the Frontiers portfolio. The articles are freely accessible immediately after publication at no additional cost. All public and private research institutions in Germany as well as state, regional and specialised libraries can join the consortium at the beginning of a quarter in 2024. As an alternative to the flat fee, institutions can also apply for a discount on the publication fee (article processing charge – APC). The agreement runs for three years from January 2024. According to the publisher's press release, it is their first flat-fee agreement in Europe. The ZB MED concluded the agreement together with the Leibniz Information Centre TIB.
Further information:
- Read the Frontiers press release at the following link:
https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2023/12/14/the-transformed-agreement-german-library-consortium-and-frontiers-announce-worlds-largest-fully-open-access-agreement - The ZB MED press release (in German) can be found at idw-online.de:
https://nachrichten.idw-online.de/2023/12/14/nationales-gold-open-access-publikationskonsortium-zb-med-und-frontiers-unterzeichnen-flat-fee-abkommen - The product sheet of the agreement can be viewed here:
https://www.zbmed.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Bibliothek/Konsortiallizenzen/2023-12-14_PB_Frontiers_Agreement_2024-2026.pdf
Picture credits:
- Source: Petra Kneib | Copyright: CC BY-SA 4.0