The Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL) has struck a landmark new open access in principle agreement with global publisher Taylor & Francis, marking a major step toward fairer and more sustainable access to research for Australian and New Zealand universities.
The in principle agreement - negotiated under a new sector-wide approach involving CAUL, Universities Australia and Universities New Zealand - Te Pōkai Tara - will provide comprehensive open access publishing for authors at participating universities in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand from 1 January 2026, without individual article processing charges. The deal covers all hybrid and gold journals in the Taylor & Francis portfolio.
The agreement means that all Australian and New Zealand university research published by Taylor & Francis can be freely accessed by members of the public. Publishing academic research openly helps counter the rise of misinformation and disinformation.
CAUL Content Procurement Committee Chair Hero Macdonald said: "This in principle agreement with Taylor & Francis is a monumental step forward in the transition to open access for Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Comprehensive publishing across Taylor & Francis's suite of journals, no matter their type, greatly simplifies the options for authors.
"Through this partnership, CAUL and Taylor & Francis have reaffirmed their commitment to a sustainable open access transition. Working together, we look forward to meeting the ever-demanding needs of the research community by providing unhindered opportunities for open access publishing."
The deal with Taylor & Francis is the first to be struck under CAUL's new negotiation framework, established in response to mounting pressure on university budgets and growing concern about the rising cost of open access publishing.
CAUL Open Access Negotiation Strategy Committee Chair and Deakin University Vice-Chancellor Professor Iain Martin said: "The growing costs of both library subscriptions and open access publishing has become unaffordable for universities. The partnership between CAUL, UA, and UNZ is all about ensuring that we are delivering fair value for the taxpayer and can continue to prioritise the research and learning that matters."
CAUL is continuing to negotiate new agreements with Wiley and Springer Nature and is confident of reaching a positive outcome with both publishers.
CAUL has paused discussions with Elsevier after both parties were unable to reach agreement on major commercial terms, including pricing, agreement structure and inclusion of gold open access journals.
"Elsevier is an important publishing partner for the sector, and we remain committed to re-engaging with them on a sustainable pricing framework," Professor Martin said.
"Our sector, and indeed, our community should have confidence that our agreement with one of the world's largest and most profitable publishers is fair and reasonable. We remain hopeful of achieving that."
The pause in negotiations signals CAUL's commitment to ensuring that any agreement it negotiates represents appropriate value and aligns with the evolving needs of the research community.
