Elsevier – Terms of agreement and UL recommendations

Logo Elsevier — WikipédiaFollowing negotiations led by the Couperin consortium and the Agence bibliographique de l’enseignement supérieur, under the aegis of the MESR, a national agreement covering reading and publication costs has been signed with Elsevier for the period 2024-2027 for all ESR institutions.

Key facts

  • Around 1,800 journals (excluding those that are natively open access) are available to read under this agreement. (Freedom Collection, Bibliothèque médicale française, UL’s ‘historic’ titles).
  • Members of UL – as of all research institutions in France – have the opportunity to publish their accepted articles in 2,480 eligible, hybrid and open access journals in immediate open access. (see the list + UL supplementary list), without Article Processing Charges or APC.
  • The prepaid APC stock for the whole of France is calibrated to cover 100% of articles with a corresponding author affiliated to a subscribing institution. However, if the quota is exhausted, a 10% discount on the retail price will be offered.
  • APCs in certain journals (notably The Lancet and Cell press journals) are not covered by the offer (see the list). A 10% discount is offered on these titles.
  • For journals that are not fully open access, authors can always choose to publish by subscription, preferring to publish in HAL for open access distribution (immediately if they implement the strategy of not transferring rights, or with an embargo of 6 to 12 months based on the law for a Digital Republic).
  • Elsevier has indicated that it is not opposed to implementing the strategy of not transferring rights.

The point of view of the Université de Lorraine on this agreement

The Université de Lorraine has expressed its reservations about the agreements covering reading and publication costs in this memo. While the proposed 4-year contract may seem advantageous, it is feared that its benefits will be short-lived and that the bill will increase disproportionately at the end of the 4 years.

 

The Université de Lorraine therefore recommends choosing the ‘Subscription’ option by implementing the strategy of non-assignment of rights, accepted by Elsevier. Thus, you will be able to diffuse in HAL the author version of your publications in immediate open access. Otherwise, if you do not wish to apply this strategy, the law for a digital republic allows in all cases the diffusion in HAL with an embargo from 6 to 12 months maximum according to the discipline.

In practice

  • When submitting an article to an Elsevier journal, I specify my employing institution. At this stage, I can already select the publication options, but only for guidance. If I am using the strategy of non-assignment of rights, I choose the ‘Subscription’ option.

  • Once my article has been accepted, I specify my employer institution in the Rights & Access form > Step 1 ‘Corresponding author’.
    I choose the publication option (Rights & Access > Step 4):

Subscription

This is the option recommended by the UL.

It is compatible with the strategy of non-assignment of rights and deposit in HAL with an embargo of 6 to 12 months.

Gold Open access avec frais à 0 €

In this case:

  • I select a licence from the 3 options. The CC-BY licence, which is checked by default, is recommended by the UL and the ANR (Rights & Access > Step 5). Know more about licences.
  • The article is available online in open access.
  • The UL administrator receives a notification. She checks your UL membership in the directory, which enables her to confirm that the article can benefit from the conditions of the agreement.

To find out more