No deal with SAGE Publishing and SpringerNature – What next?

9 December 20258 October 2026 ~ Catherine Brendow ~ 2 Comments

As often happens, major academic publishers set unreasonable conditions in their contract negotiations with the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries, and Swiss universities will start 2026 without a contract to access new publications in SAGE journals and SpringerNature titles, nor possibilities to publish articles open access in these. What does this mean, how does this affect researchers, and how can you help in our struggle against attempts at implementing leonine contracts?

edit: A new agreement was signed with SpringerNature in June 2026. The situation with SAGE is ongoing and the following still applies as of October 8, 2026.

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Surviving in a time of no-deal with Wiley

26 March 20259 January 2026 ~ Catherine Brendow ~ 2 Comments

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?

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