TA achievements

“Our group includes very small schools, very large schools, and all sizes in between, and our goal is to try to create something that is beneficial for everyone involved.”

Celeste Feather, Senior Director of Content and Scholarly Communication Initiatives, Lyrasis

By pooling funding from across organisations, TAs enable OA publishing for more researchers, including those from historically underfunded areas such as lower research-intensive institutions, HSS disciplines, and early career researchers.

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) like Grambling State University are experiencing the potential of OA publishing for the first time, through their participation in the Lyrasis Springer Nature TA.

“It’s benefiting our students and faculty members across the board at HBCUs. It’s giving us an opportunity where we’ve been shut out for so long and not been able to present our ideas in a new format. So I think it’s groundbreaking for us.”

Adrienne Webber, Dean, University Digital Library, Grambling State University

For these institutions, focusing on education and training for researchers remains a critical component in these agreements, ensuring researchers benefit fully from the opportunity.

“We will conduct a series of technical writing seminars or coaching to train students in research writing. This initiative will equip them with the technical writing skills necessary for publication.

Furthermore, from the library’s perspective, it’s essential that we guide students in the exploration of opportunities they may not have considered before.”

Adrienne Webber, Dean, University Digital Library, Grambling State University

In addition, Springer Nature assists institutions by delivering webinars for approval managers and authors, as well as providing resources for institutions to raise awareness of the agreement amongst researchers.

TAs are also broadening OA uptake across disciplines. In several Springer Nature TAs, the percentage of HSS articles published OA has increased by over 2000%. In our case studies, Slovenia’s uptake of OA for eligible HSS articles increased by over 600%, from 12% before the start of their agreement to 85% in 2023. Similarly, South Africa’s OA uptake for eligible HSS articles increased by 800% from 9% to 81% in the same period.

Figure 7: OA uptake in the Humanities and Social Sciences: South Africa and Slovenia (pre-TA vs 2023)

Table 7: OA uptake in the Humanities and Social Sciences: South Africa and Slovenia (pre-TA vs 2023)

	South Africa	Slovenia
Pre-TA	9%	12%
2023	81%	85%
Percentage increase	800%	600%

Although none of our case study interviewees had yet evaluated uptake across disciplines, there was the expectation that facilitating OA across all disciplines was beneficial.

“I think once our faculty sees what’s happening in their discipline area, what can happen and how professionally they grow, it will become something that will be infectious.”

Adrienne Webber, Dean, University Digital Library, Grambling State University

A recent global study found that 67% of early career researchers (ECRs) say that making their work openly available is important to them.²³ Yet, 70% have been prevented from publishing OA because of a lack of funds. Our case studies highlight the benefits TAs offer to ECRs who often lack access to funding, enabling them to publish their work OA and gain visibility in the academic community.

“It’s the exposure that our emerging research will get from transformative agreements because you will see that more and more emerging researchers get to publish. You get to see more and more new researchers publishing and new people publishing, it’s not a daunting task anymore to publish.”

Luyolo Matabeni, Senior Librarian, Nelson Mandela University

To learn more about how TAs are enabling a global shift towards OA, click on each achievement below.