Landmark new open access agreements have been reached with Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley.

The agreements are known as “Read and Publish Agreements”, which cover access rights to content (“read”) and UWA authors publishing in journals (“publish”).

UWA’s agreements with the large academic publishers are negotiated on our behalf by the Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL), representing University Libraries in the Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand region.

In 2025, CAUL has been leading negotiations with major publishers to develop transformed agreements that represent a step-change in value, openness, and sustainability for the benefit of CAUL Members and their communities. CAUL’s negotiations have been driven by the following principles:

• Ensuring transparent, fair and equitable value
• Maximising open access publishing opportunities
• Exploring new and innovative agreement models
• Advancing the transition to full OA 

You can read more about the approach and drivers towards sustainable and transparent agreements on the CAUL website.

Current Status of the Negotiations

CAUL has reached agreement with the following publishers - Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley. These agreements were announced on the 13 November 2025 ,  28 November 2025 and 16 December 2025.

The agreements with these three publishers commence 1 January 2026, and provide more options for UWA authors who want to make their research outputs available through these publishers. The new agreements are progress towards more sustainable models and increased open access to research.

Impact for UWA staff and students

From 1 January 2026:

• UWA staff and students will continue to have access to new journal content from Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley.
• UWA researchers may publish in an expanded list of hybrid and gold journal titles from Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley and hybrid journal titles from Elsevier without having to pay open access fees.

More Information

 Further updates including specific details of the agreements will be provided through the Open Access Toolkit as information becomes available.