In 2019, Frontiers signed a three year national open access agreement in the UK with JISC Collections.  Thanks to this landmark deal, UK universities now benefit from a simplified and streamlined route to open access publishing for researchers in the UK.

As we approach the second anniversary of the agreement, we are pleased to announce an overwhelmingly positive response from UK universities.  More than half of all UK articles published by Frontiers come from the growing number of universities participating in this agreement (see list below). 

UK universities and its researchers benefit from the advantages of publishing in open access, which include global immediate and unrestricted reading access and permanent open archiving.

Other benefits of joining the agreement include:

• A 10% discount on the publication costs (APCs),

• Authors are relieved from responsibilities of payment and invoicing,

• Three central invoicing options for institutions to choose from,

• Institutions determine which articles are eligible to be paid for centrally,

• Institutions are supported by dedicated account managers.

There is still time to sign-up to the agreement via the JISC website here.

(Agreement details for Frontiers Open Access publishing UK framework agreement 2019-2022 available here.)

This year, Frontiers also launched a dedicated dashboard for institutional members that allows the university libraries to verify articles.  It gives libraries complete control over which articles are eligible to be paid for centrally and the process is quick and simple.  In addition, the libraries  can view article data – including the APC, author, title and funder – by downloading the latest CSV reports.

By joining this national fully open access scheme, UK institutions and their authors not only save time and money, but also have a straightforward, simple way to fully comply with the requirements of the current UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) open access policy, as well as their newly announced policy which will come into force as of 1 April 2022.

In light of the progress achieved already with this agreement, we are looking forward to continuing and expanding collaborations with UK Higher Education institutions and JISC.

You can sign-up to the agreement via the JISC website here.  (Here you can find all license information as well.)

If you would like more information, please get in touch via institutions@frontiersin.org.  For general information on Frontiers Institutional Memberships, please take a look here.

List of participating institutions: (September 2021)

• Bangor University

• Cardiff University

• Cranfield University

• Kingston University

• London South Bank University

• Queen Mary University of London

• Queen's University of Belfast

• The Francis Crick Institute Limited

• The Manchester Metropolitan University

• The Pirbright Institute

• The University of Manchester

• The University of Nottingham

• The University of Sheffield

• University College London

• University of Aberdeen

• University of Birmingham

• University of Bristol

• University of Cambridge

• University of Durham

• University of Edinburgh

• University of Exeter

• University of Lancaster

• University of Newcastle upon Tyne

• University of Oxford

• University of Salford

• University of Southampton

• University of Stirling

• University of the West of England, Bristol