Open Access at EPFL: costs and evolution

Overview
As part of the Read&Publish agreements, the EPFL Library pays a fixed annual amount to several publishers to allow EPFL authors to publish Open Access free of charge.

Cost
1’492’000 CHF in 2024 (this amount only accounts for the publishing part of the Read&Publish agreements)

Funding source
EPFL Library

Negotiations
– Contracts with Elsevier, Wiley and Springer Nature (often referred to as “Big Deals”) are negotiated at national level by a dedicated team with a mandate from swissuniversities.
– Contracts with smaller publishers (ACS, AIP, CUP, IEEE, IOP, OUP, RSC, Taylor&Francis) are negotiated by the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries (CSAL).

Coverage
These agreements include:
– The reading access for the EPFL community to the journal portfolio of the publishers;
– The possibility to publish Open Access free of charge for EPFL-affiliated corresponding authors (i.e. APC fully covered). This opportunity is limited to the list of journals included in the agreement and is possibly subject to other limitations (annual quota, funder-related restrictions, etc.). Agreements usually cover Hybrid journals and, increasingly, Gold OA journals as well.

Number of publications
646 articles (in 2024)

Overview
As part of these agreements, the EPFL Library pays a fixed annual amount to certain fully Gold/Diamond OA publishers to allow EPFL authors to publish Open Access free of charge.

Cost
114’000 CHF (in 2024)

Funding source
– The EPFL Library contributed with 83’000 CHF in 2024
– swissuniversities contributed with 31’000 CHF in 2024

Negotiations
The Library negotiates some contracts with these publishers directly, while others are negotiated at a national level.

Overview
These are voluntary contributions from the EPFL Library to support the development of several Swiss and international initiatives for the promotion of Open Science and Open Access, many of which fall within the framework of the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS).

Cost
36’000 CHF (in 2024)

Funding source
EPFL Library

Overview
This expense is the sum of all individual APC and BPC paid outside the agreements to publish in Gold OA journals and books.

Cost
The exact total cost is unknown (please refer to the next paragraph APC for Hybrid journals for further details)

Funding source
– The EPFL Library Gold OA fund contributed with 72’000 CHF in 2024 (via reimbursement of APC to EPFL Labs).
– The SNSF OA fund contributed with 354’000 CHF in 2023 (via upfront payment or reimbursement of APC to EPFL laboratories). Other funders have also made financial contributions, but unfortunately these cannot be tracked.
– EPFL laboratories paid from their own budget for all APC that could not be covered otherwise. This expense includes all publications in full Gold OA journals that [1] could not receive (or received only a partial) reimbursement from the EPFL Library Gold OA fund, [2] could not benefit from a financial support of a funder, and [3] were not covered by an institutional contract (i.e. agreements Read&Publish or with Gold OA publishers).

Overview
This expense is the sum of all individual APC paid outside the Read&Publish agreements to publish in Hybrid journals.

Cost
The precise amount is unknown (“cost in the wild”, as already mentioned in the previous paragraph APC/BPC for Gold OA journals/books), but the total expenditure by laboratories on APC for Hybrid and Gold OA journals is estimated to be approximately CHF 743’000 in 2024.

Funding source
EPFL laboratories paid from their own budget for all Hybrid journals’ APC that were not covered by an institutional contract (i.e. a Read&Publish agreement), either because [1] no institutional agreement was available for the corresponding journal/publisher, [2] the publication did not meet all eligibility requirements, or [3] the annual quota had already been reached when the article was accepted for publication.

Hybrid OA saw the most significant growth, accounting for over half of all OA articles published at EPFL in 2023, and seven times more than in 2018. This increase can be partly attributed to the introduction and spread of Read&Publish agreements, which often allow authors to publish OA free of charge in hybrid journals.

Furthermore, it can be argued that many of the most prestigious journals are hybrid: for example, among the top 100 journals ranked by the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator, 94 are hybrid, with the highest-ranked Gold OA journal appearing only in 38^th place. Similar results can be seen in the ranking based on the Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) journal indicator from the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University. Only ten of the top 100 journals are Gold OA, with the first one appearing in 37^th place. It should also be noted that Hybrid OA is highly profitable for commercial publishers, as they generate revenue from both OA fees (APC) and subscription paywalls.  Consequently, Read&Publish agreements and the APC for hybrid journals now account for the largest portion of EPFL’s OA budget.

Gold OA also grew over the same period, but at a slower rate than Hybrid. Its expansion has been supported by various funding sources, including the SNSF, the European Commission, and the EPFL Library. These funding schemes exist because Gold OA, compared to the Hybrid model, better aligns with the OA philosophy and the long-term commitments of funders and institutions. However, its growth has been constrained by the slow overall transition of hybrid journals to full Gold OA.

In contrast to Hybrid and Gold, Green OA has declined significantly, now representing just 5% of all published articles—almost four times less than in 2018. Two key factors can explain this reduction: first, the availability of institutional funds and agreements has made Hybrid and Gold OA more accessible and appealing; second, publishers have often failed to update the self-archiving conditions of their journals, rendering them non-compliant with the funders’ most recent Open Access policies. As a result, unless authors are willing to negotiate with publishers to obtain better self-archiving rights, they often opt for the Hybrid model to meet funder mandates. Nonetheless, Green OA remains a valuable option to offset the costs associated with Hybrid OA and further reduce the share of closed-access articles without additional financial burden. Initiatives like the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) and ongoing improvements to platforms such as Infoscience are key steps toward revitalizing Green OA.

Finally, Diamond OA has remained relatively stable at 3% of all publications. Its limited growth reflects the fact that Diamond OA is predominantly community led and supported by smaller, non-commercial publishers, such as institutions, scholarly societies, or even individual laboratories. While Diamond OA is less common in Europe, it plays a more significant role in regions like South America, where it is more widely adopted.