Big Deals with Big Five

The European Universities Association has published a 2^nd “Big Deals Survey Report”, as a follow up to their 1^st such survey in April 2018 (reviewed in VU IN&R 111).

Input from 31 consortia forms the basis of this report. 30 European countries negotiate on behalf of the university sector and other higher education and research organisations, including research institutes and hospitals. The survey exclusively focused on periodical Big Deals with five large publishers. The report notes that the trend towards immediate Open Access publication is accelerating, also pushed by Plan S and cOAlition S. It also signals “Publish and Read” agreements as a new type of contract between publishers and consortia, including both fees to publish and read.