Tohoku University has announced its participation in a transformative agreement proposal between the Japan Alliance of University Library Consortia for E-resources (JUSTICE) and Elsevier, one of the world's largest academic publishers.
Signed in October, the three-year agreement will help amplify the research being done in Japan by reducing the cost-burden for researchers. This will in turn contribute to the advancement of open science, allowing members of the general public to access research papers for free.
"Disseminating research to the general public is as important as the research itself," says Tohoku University Libraries Director and Vice President, Noriko Osumi. "Taking part in this agreement will make our research more accessible and empower younger researchers to publish more often in open access journals."
Fees for making academic papers open access - known as article processing charges (APC) - are often borne by the researchers themselves. For more prestigious journals, APCs can be prohibitively expensive. The Japanese government is seeking to ensure that articles resulting from nationally funded research are made open access.
Tohoku University has been active in supporting the transition towards open access, signing similar transformative agreements with publication giants Wiley and Springer Nature in 2022 and 2023, respectively. The university also recently began a support program geared towards young researchers, providing assistance for APCs for journals with a certain reputation level. The latest agreement with Elsevier will expand the program.
JUSTICE, a consortium established in 2011 to enhance coordination and cooperation between Japanese university libraries, represented 57 universities in negotiations with Elsevier. Osumi believes this highlights the changing role of university libraries in recent years. "Libraries no longer simply store and lend out specialized journals and academic books; they digitize e-journals and e-books, and many are now involved in the publication of academic papers as well."
Link:
Contact:
Nao Kinoshita, Tohoku University Library
Email: lib.apc
grp.tohoku.ac.jp
Website: https://www.library.tohoku.ac.jp/en/
