Australasian universities have reached an in-principle agreement with global scholarly publishing giant Elsevier, averting a potential loss of access to more than 1,600 academic journals.
The Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL) confirmed that the deal was finalized after renewed negotiations with the Dutch publisher, following a breakdown in talks last month. CAUL said the new agreement is “significantly improved” compared with the earlier proposal and addresses several long-standing concerns around pricing and access.
Deakin University Vice-Chancellor Iain Martin, who chairs CAUL’s Open Access Negotiation Strategy Committee, said the agreement meets many of the objectives set by universities at the outset of negotiations.
“Through this agreement, more than 10,000 Australia–New Zealand research articles will be published openly with Elsevier in 2026,” Martin said.
The deal includes a substantial reduction in the subscription fees initially sought by Elsevier and introduces uncapped hybrid open-access publishing across Elsevier’s full journal portfolio. This includes globally recognized titles such as Cell Press and The Lancet. The agreement also aims to address inequities linked to legacy pricing models that have long been criticized by universities.
However, around 900 fully “gold” open-access journals are not covered under the agreement.
The Elsevier deal follows similar arrangements secured by CAUL with other major academic publishers, including Springer Nature, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis. Universities in the United Kingdom have also recently concluded comparable agreements with the same four publishers.
Hero Macdonald, Deakin University Librarian and Chair of CAUL’s Content Procurement Committee, noted that the agreement was notable for being achieved without disrupting access to academic resources.
“In most international examples, achievements of this scale have only been secured through significant disruption and multi-year cancellations,” Macdonald said.
The agreement marks a significant step in the region’s push towards greater open access to publicly funded research while maintaining continuity for researchers and institutions.