Plan outputs and publication: determine where to publish (data and research Outputs)

 The eResearch Knowledge Unit (eRKU) has been mandated to administer the payment of Article Processing Charges (APC) for open-access publishing on behalf of the organisation.   

Through the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC) membership, the eRKU  has a Transformative Agreement (Read & Publish) with several publishers for free publishing in hybrid journals, as indicated in Annexure A below. SANLiC negotiates collective license agreements with publishers and promotes transformational transition to Open Access on  behalf of its members. The HSRC participated in the Transformative Agreement from January 2023. Transformative agreements are contracts negotiated between institutions and publishers that transform the business model underlying scholarly journal publishing, moving from one based on toll access (subscription) to one in which publishers are remunerated a fair price for their open-access publishing services.

A hybrid journal is a subscription journal in which some articles are open-access. Discounts will apply for fully open-access journals.

• eRKU upgraded from complete publisher packages to transformative agreements with five publishers. This will benefit HSRC researchers by allowing them to publish in hybrid journals at no cost. The list of hybrid journals for these packages is available on this link Read and Publish Agreements and Open Access | SANLiC

Annexure A:

Elsevier Geographic Pilot for Open Access

• South African authors qualify for a 55% discount on the APC in 140 Elsevier journals
• No end date for the pilot

Elsevier: Open Access Geographic Pricing Pilot Journals List

For enquiries, contact Abel Modise (amodise@hsrc.ac.za) and Frieda Billson (fbillson@hsrc.ac.za)