February 8, 2022 - Hoboken, NJ - Global research and education leader Wiley today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on open access publishing with the library directors of Tohoku University, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, and Tokyo University of Science. This MoU is intended to be the basis for a new transformational agreement and to accelerate open access research publishing across Japan.
This MoU concerns a transformational agreement, will start in April 2022, and which is the first initiative jointly signed by multiple universities in Japan and a major international publisher. The MoU allows four institutions across Japan to access to all of Wiley's hybrid and subscription journals and grants researchers the ability to publish accepted articles open access in all of Wiley's 1,400 hybrid journals. Participating institutions span national universities, private universities and national research institutes.
"We're pleased to join this agreement which will deepen the impact and visibility of scholarship from these four leading institutions," said Liz Ferguson, Senior Vice President, Wiley Research Publishing.
"The fact that Japanese universities with different attributes gathered and signed such a MoU successfully is epoch-making. It is expected that each university will accelerate open access publishing through a transformational agreement in the coming years. I hope that this signing will prompt not only these four universities but many other universities in Japan to engage in initiatives for the advancement of open access, resulting in further increase of international impact of research from Japan," said Kazuhiro Hayashi, Director of Research Unit for Data Application at National Institute of Science and Technology Policy, who has been providing advice to Japanese universities, including the four universities, on how to promote open access to research papers from Japan.
Wiley has open access agreements with a variety of institutions, consortia and government entities globally, including those signed with the National Research Council of Science & Technology in the Republic of Korea, the Slovenian Academic Consortium, the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium, and the Carolina Consortium earlier this year.
