The agreement reached will allow a high volume of articles published by CSIC correspondence authors in hybrid titles to be published in open access.
    Until December 31, 2024, the CSIC will be able to continue accessing the 1,800 ScienceDirect journals.

The Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and Crue Universidades Españolas have signed an agreement with Elsevier to publish in open access articles by researchers from Spanish universities and CSIC that have been accepted from January 1, 2021. In addition, in this agreement, the signatory entities maintain access to the contents of the scientific journal platform ScienceDirect.

With this transformative agreement, the first of its kind at national level, Crue fulfills the commitment made by its General Assembly in February 2019 regarding the promotion of Open Science through the publication in open access of the results of the work carried out by researchers at universities. For its part, CSIC, the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe, is giving new impetus to its Open Science strategy by promoting open access to its research results through the transformation of its subscription licenses, an initiative that has already enabled it to reach agreements of this nature with various international scientific publishers through its Open Access Publishing Support Program.

Specifically, the agreement with Elsevier affects a total of 58 universities and the CSIC, responsible for more than 70% of scientific production in Spain.
After the signing, the vice-president of Crue, president of the Open Science Working Group and rector of the Universitat Politècnica de València, Francisco Mora, expressed his satisfaction for what he considers a substantive step "towards new ways of disseminating science and, above all, towards the socialization of knowledge through free access to it". Mora also stressed the importance of both researchers and the general public having access to scientific publications "without limitation, since with their taxes they contribute to the generation of this knowledge".

For the Vice-President for Scientific and Technical Research of the CSIC, Jesús Marco, the agreement is part of the academic strategy of this organization to move away from the traditional licensing model, based on the subscription of contents and payment for reading them, to a model of reading and publication. As he indicated, it is "a commitment to open access as a lever for the promotion of Open Science" through agreements with scientific publishers. "We are very happy to have achieved this in alliance with Crue Universidades Españolas," he said.

For his part, Elsevier's executive vice president, Gino Ussi, stressed that "Spanish researchers are generating more and more high quality research" and assured that the publisher is "delighted to support the open access objectives of Crue-CSIC institutions and ensure that truly world-class researchers throughout Spain continue to be able to access high quality, trusted research" in its journals. Ussi thanked Crue and CSIC for the "collaborative approach that has led to this agreement".

    About the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas

CSIC is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Made up of 120 institutes, 67 of its own and 53 in collaboration with 43 public universities, it has an Open Access institutional mandate in force since April 1, 2019. It has more than 5,300 researchers who publish more than 12,000 scientific publications per year, of which almost 70% are in the top quartile of impact factor.

    About Crue Spanish Universities

Crue Universidades Españolas is a non-profit association formed by a total of 76 Spanish universities: 50 public and 26 private. As the main interlocutor of universities with the central government, it plays a key role in all regulatory developments affecting Higher Education in Spain. It also promotes initiatives of different kinds in order to foster relations with the productive and social fabric, institutional relations, both national and international. In February 2019, it approved the document "Commitment of universities to Open Science", a decalogue with concrete measures for the implementation of Open Science.

    About Elsevier

Dutch publisher Elsevier is a world leader in information and information analysis for researchers, institutions and funders. It has more than 2,600 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and more than 40,000 e-book titles. Through the Elsevier Foundation and an external Inclusion and Diversity Advisory Board, it promotes inclusion and diversity in science, research and health in developing countries and around the world.

(CSIC Communication)

Note: CSIC, through its Scientific Information Resources for Research Unit, which has participated in the negotiation process, will soon inform researchers and libraries in more detail about the details of this agreement and what it represents in terms of OA publication level, as well as the procedures to benefit from it. All the information will be available shortly on the Open Access Publishing Support page. This agreement is in addition to those that CSIC has already reached with other publishers such as Cambridge University Press, Royal Society of Chemistry, Taylor and Francis; Open Library of Humanities, Microbiology Society or Biochemical Society / Portland Press, among others.