Read and Publish agreements are very convenient for researchers. You can publish open access in your favourite journals, at no cost (to you). But all good things have their downside: as academic publishing is largely controlled by an oligopoly of private companies, and as you might imagine libraries’ budgets are not infinite, negotiations are tough. Sometimes, we have to walk away from the table due to irreconcilable positions, which triggers a “no-deal” period. This is now happening with Wiley. How can researchers adapt and continue their research in these times?
So what exactly is happening?
Read and Publish agreements run for a number of years. Our agreement with Wiley expired at the end of 2024. The Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries has been negotiating with Wiley for some time, but no agreement has yet been reached due to significant limitations set by the publisher.
In the absence of an agreement, we have not paid Wiley for access and publication rights in 2025. The “grace period” offered by Wiley since January 1st is about to end. This means that:
- No longer have access to paywalled articles published in Wiley journals later than 2024.
- Our researchers can no longer publish open access articles in Wiley journals without article processing charges.
- Access to articles published before 2025 is covered by our previous agreements and will remain active.
But I need this recent article!
You can:
- Use Unpaywall, the Open Access Button, Open Access Helper or Core Discovery to find a free version of the article (such as an Accepted Manuscript).
- Ask our wonderful colleagues for an interlibrary loan.
- Send a message to the authors explaining how important this article is to you. They can usually provide you with a copy of their article.
- Post a message with the hashtag #icanhazpdf on Bluesky or Mastodon.
- Still empty-handed? Maybe Anna can help you1.
I am just about to publish in a Wiley journal
If your research is not funded by the SNSF, you can publish in any journal.
- If you can still change journals (i.e. have not yet submitted your work), you should try to do so. By the way, Diamond journals do not levy publication fees for open access.
- If you cannot, just send your accepted manuscript to the library. It can be archived and published on the Graduate Institute repository (sometimes after an embargo period). This is called the “green route” and is how Unpaywall, the Open Access Button, the Open Access Helper and Core Discovery work.
- In the case of a Gold or Hybrid open access journal, if you have the money to cover the APC (publication fee), nothing stops you from doing so, but it may jeopardise our negotiating position. The Library will generally not cover APCs outside of its agreements.
If your research is funded by the SNSF or another institution requiring open access publication, there are multiple ways to fulfill that mandate.
- If the journal is a full-Gold title (100% open access), publication fees can be paid from your SNSF budget. This is not the case if you publish in a hybrid journal (closed, with APC option).
- If publishing in a closed- or hybrid-access journal, check if it allows self-archiving for paywalled articles. Ideally, you should (have) do(ne) this at the time of submission: the SNSF requires that you follow the rights retention strategy upon submission of your article, i.e. assert your ownership of the work and reserve the rights to secondary publication of your accepted manuscript on an institutional repository such as ours. You can then send it to the Library (which will make us very happy!)
- If the journal does not allow self archiving and you cannot switch to another, you can publish paywalled. It may become open access later: retro-conversion of articles published during the no deal period is on the negotiating menu. This is not really compatible with SNSF requirements (immediate OA) and you are expected to prove fair efforts in trying to find a solution for open access.
How long will it last?
As any negotiation, it can take as long as we cannot reach an agreement that is acceptable to the very reasonable negotiation mandate established by Swiss academic libraries. Of course, we hope it will not take too long, but it is difficult to predict.
Don’t forget: you are not alone. The Library team is here to help. Please do not hesitate to send us your questions.
- Anna’s Archive is a website sharing pirated academic publications, which you are allowed to download under Swiss law for your personal use. You should not use this website while you are staying out of Switzerland. ↩︎
Header photograph: Benjamin Child (Unsplash licence)
Geneva Graduate Institute Library Blog 
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