image: IOPP and US National Labs Transformative Agreement
Credit: IOP Publishing.
Five prominent National Laboratories in the United States have secured transformative agreements with IOP Publishing (IOPP), advancing open access (OA) to research at scale. Argonne National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory join a growing number of academic institutions that drive the growth of OA through the adoption of transformative agreements.
Transformative agreements enable researchers affiliated with these research labs to publish their work openly and free of costs, with the institutions covering the associated expenses. This makes it easier for researchers to disseminate their findings openly lifting financial barriers and supporting collaboration within the scientific community.
The interest in OA publishing in North America has seen a surge, with an increasing number of institutions opting for transformative agreements with IOPP. At the start of 2022, 47 institutions had established transformative agreements with IOPP. The number now stands at over 300. This has resulted in IOPP publishing over 1000 OA articles from North American institutions that have signed up to a transformative agreement in 2023, a 380% growth on the year before.
Julian Wilson, Chief Sales Officer says: "We've witnessed a remarkable uptake in the number of articles published openly under transformative agreements. In fact, the growth rate of articles published under these agreements has outpaced non-transformative agreement OA articles, signifying the effectiveness and momentum of these agreements as they really help to increase OA uptake.”
The advantages of publishing OA are widely recognised by researchers, funders and institutions, and are supported by initiatives such as the White House’s Office of Science and Technology’s open access policy. OA publishing increases the visibility of research which is reflected in IOPP data showing that articles published OA are on average downloaded 70% more than paywalled articles and cited 15% more.
IOPP continues to secure transformative agreements in North America, with 25 new agreements already signed this year. IOPP currently has transformative agreements with more than 1000 institutions across 34 countries.