Open Access Publishing Agreements in 2026

The University’s open access publishing agreements can help you to publish journal articles open access without facing Article Processing Charges (APCs). All 2025 agreements have been renewed for 2026, however there are some major changes in agreement terms with some publishers. There is also a new agreement with Emerald Publishing. The key changes for these agreements are summarised below.

Details of each agreement, including a list of covered journals, can be found on the Library’s Open Access Publishing page. Note that until publishers provide a list of their titles, they will be marked as not confirmed on the provisional covered titles list.

New agreements in 2026

Emerald Publishing

Unlimited open access publishing for University of Melbourne corresponding authors is now available in selected Emerald journals. In 2026, this agreement covers hybrid (subscription) journals in the Management eJournal Portfolio and the Education eJournal Collection, plus Emerald’s Gold Open Access titles.

Revised agreements

De Gruyter

From 2026, our agreement with De Gruyter has expanded to include unlimited open access publishing in:

• 117 hybrid (subscription) journals
• 124 Subscribe to Open journals
• 74 fully open access (gold) journals

This significantly increases opportunities for open access publishing in De Gruyter titles for University of Melbourne corresponding authors.

Elsevier

Negotiations between CAUL and Elsevier restarted in December after pausing in November last year. CAUL has secured a significantly improved agreement, with Elsevier confirming that there is no gap between last year’s agreement end date and the commencement of the 2026 agreement.

Expanded coverage in 2026 removes the article cap (or quota) previously in place, providing unlimited open access publishing across all covered hybrid Elsevier journals. For the first time, the University’s agreement with Elsevier also sees the inclusion of hybrid journals in the Cell Press and Lancet portfolios. Only articles accepted to these journals from 1 January 2026 are eligible.

Springer Nature

Expanded coverage in 2026 removes the article cap (or quota) previously in place. From 2026, University of Melbourne corresponding authors now have access to unlimited open access publishing in hybrid journals from the following imprints: Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, ADIS, Birkhäuser, J.B. Metzler, and Academic Journals on nature.com. Journals in these portfolios that transitioned from hybrid to fully open access since 2023 are also included.

From 2026, the agreement also includes unlimited open access publishing for University of Melbourne corresponding authors in fully open access SpringerOpen and PalgraveOpen journals.

Note that this agreement does not cover BMC (BioMed Central), Nature and other Nature research journals, or the Discover portfolio. As in previous years, a 15% discount on APCs is available for BMC and Discover tiles.

Taylor & Francis

Expanded coverage in 2026 removes the article cap (or quota) previously in place, and for the first time includes fully open access journals. This means that in 2026, University of Melbourne corresponding authors now have access to unlimited open access publishing in most hybrid and open access Taylor & Francis journals.

Journals that were previously part of the separate T&F Expert Medicine Collection are now covered by this new agreement. Note that this agreement does not cover journals published under the Dove Press, PeerJ, and F1000 imprints.

While this is agreement is uncapped, if T&F’s predicted publishing rate is exceeded, the agreement may be renegotiated with a potential impact on terms in subsequent years.

Wiley

Expanded coverage in 2026 removes the article cap (or quota) for hybrid journals. From 2026, University of Melbourne corresponding authors now have access to unlimited open access publishing in Wiley hybrid (subscription) journals.

Unfortunately, a cap still applies to articles published in Wiley open access journals. However, it is a higher cap than in previous years.

Continuing agreements

We can also confirm that the following agreements have been renewed for 2026: ACM, AIP Publishing , APA Publishing, ASME, Brill, Cambridge University Press, Cogitatio Press, Company of Biologists, CSH Press, CSIRO Publishing, Geological Society, IOP Publishing, John Benjamins, Microbiology Society, Oxford University Press, Portland Press , Royal Society, and Sage.

Other open access opportunities

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a searchable quality-controlled index of over 21,000 fully open access journals. Over 60% of the journals listed in DOAJ do not levy Article Processing Charges (APCs), being free for authors and readers alike.

If open access publishing isn’t an option for your article, paper, or book chapter, you may still be able to make a peer-reviewed manuscript open access at no cost. Sometimes called ‘Green’ open access, this involves depositing your research in an open access repository, such as our own Minerva Access. Find out more on our Repository Open Access page.

Enquiries

For enquiries relating to open access publishing, please contact your discipline’s Faculty and Liaison Librarians.