Main Content

Negotiations with Wiley

The negotiation teams from swissuniversities and Wiley opened talks in April 2024 for a Read & Publish contract as of 2025.

Discontinuation of negotiations with Wiley: No-deal situation

31 March 2025

For over a year, swissuniversities has been negotiating with Wiley on a new agreement for reading access and open access publishing options in Wiley's portfolio. The negotiations were discontinued in March 2025. swissuniversities submitted a compromise offer to Wiley, which was not accepted by Wiley. The goal of a further step in the transformation towards open access could not be achieved to the extent desired by swissuniversities.

The rectors of the Swiss higher education institutions are closely monitoring the negotiations. It is a priority of swissuniversities to reach a good agreement at a fair price. Although the latest offer submitted by Wiley contains interesting elements and incremental improvements compared to the 2021–2024 contract, it proposes a price per article that is substantially higher than in other European countries. 

The latest offer submitted by Wiley would have strengthened the attractiveness of traditional subscription journals and thus does not correspond to the desired opening of access to publicly funded research. swissuniversities remains interested in a reliable relationship with the major academic publishers and simple reading and publication options and is willing to resume negotiations on the basis of the compromise offer.

Open Access strategy sets out objectives

The recently revised Open Access strategy states that Swiss higher education institutions are committed to ensuring the financial sustainability of academic publishing and stabilise reasonable price levels. The constant growth in publication costs at the major publishing houses is fundamentally criticised.

With the negotiations with major academic publishers, swissuniversities is pursuing the goal of facilitating open access to research results and making scholarly publications financed with public funds freely accessible on the Internet. swissuniversities supports this paradigm shift through a fundamental transformation towards Open Science in the negotiations with the major scholarly publishers.

Research and teaching will not be impaired due to prepared measures

In view of the current political uncertainties, particularly at international level, the Swiss higher education institutions attach great importance to the stability of the academic system. swissuniversities is committed to optimising the framework conditions for Swiss education, research, and innovation – including by ensuring the effective and efficient use of public funds. After carefully weighing up the various interests, the Swiss higher education institutions have come to the conclusion that the latest offer submitted by Wiley cannot be accepted.

In anticipation, the libraries have prepared measures to mitigate the impact of a no-deal situation. Experience has shown that with good preparation and corresponding services, a no-deal situation may lead to restrictions and additional work, but that research and teaching are not significantly impaired:

In order to keep the no-deal situation as short as possible and to conclude the best possible agreement with Wiley, the Delegation Open Science has adopted the following recommendations to the higher education institutions:

  • Do not use central funds for publication fees
  • Consider alternatives to Wiley
  • Make publications available in Open Access as secondary publications
  • Editors should advocate for the Swiss research community
  • Review activities for Wiley should be reconsidered

The negotiations for Open Access with major academic publishers are of great importance with regard to the objective of promoting Open Science. This paradigm shift is jointly supported by the higher education institutions. swissuniversities is grateful to the research community for its willingness to pursue this path together and to support the no-deal situation with Wiley. A joint approach and the solidarity of the research community in Switzerland is of central importance in this important issue for the entire higher education landscape.
 

Update of 13 December 2024 - no deal situation

Today, the mandating institutions were informed about the status of negotiations with Wiley. This negotiation round, initiated in spring 2024, has not yet resulted in a mutually acceptable agreement. While Wiley’s offers contain some interesting elements, they do not yet fully meet the requirements of the negotiation mandate. Negotiations are therefore ongoing.

As the current agreement with Wiley will expire on 31 December 2024, preparations were put in place for a scenario without agreement (no-deal situation) as of 2025. The consortium of university libraries has compiled the following information and documents to help the mandating institutions prepare:

Experience has shown that, with good preparation and appropriate services, a no-deal situation may result in certain limitations and additional workload but does not significantly hinder research and teaching.

swissuniversities remains committed to reaching an agreement with Wiley that facilitates further progress in the transition to Open Access.

Update from 21 November 2024 - publication quota for 2024 exhausted

This year’s Open Access publication quota was reached in early November 2024. This means that researchers from participating institutions can no longer publish their scientific articles in Open Access under the existing consortium agreement until further notice. They are asked to contact their institution to discuss alternative options. A follow-up agreement with Wiley is currently being negotiated.

Update from 2 October 2024 - publication quota for 2024

This year's open access publication quota is expected to be reached at the beginning of November 2024. Researchers from the participating institutions will therefore no longer be able to publish their scientific articles in open access under the existing consortium agreement from this date onwards and until further notice. They are asked to contact their institution to discuss alternatives. A follow-up agreement with Wiley is currently being negotiated.

Update from 26 April 2024 - Start of negotiations

The negotiation teams from swissuniversities and Wiley opened talks in April for a Read & Publish contract as of 2025.
The discussions are based again on the negotiating mandate for the second round of negotiations, which was approved by the swissuniversities plenary assembly on 3 February 2022, and which was subsequently used for the negotiations with Springer Nature in 2022 and Elsevier in 2023 (see Downloads).

Update from 21 September 2023: publication quota for 2023

Due to the unbroken high demand, the Open Access publication quota will be exhausted in early October 2023. This means that, until the end of 2023, researchers from participating institutions will no longer be able to publish their scientific articles in Open Access under the Consortium agreement with Wiley. They are invited to contact their institution to discuss alternatives. As of January 2024, a new quota will be available for publications with Wiley.

Update from 1 September 2022: publication quota for 2022

Due to the unbroken high demand, the Open Access publication quota will be exhausted in early October 2023. This means that, until the end of 2023, researchers from participating institutions will no longer be able to publish their scientific articles in Open Access under the Consortium agreement with Wiley. They are invited to contact their institution to discuss alternatives. As of January 2024, a new quota will be available for publications with Wiley.

Update from 29 April 2021: conclusion of contract

swissuniversities has concluded a new Read&Publish agreement with John Wiley & Sons. It will provide students and researchers from over 40 Swiss higher education and research institutions access to the Wiley Online Library with over 1’450 journals.

The agreement came into force on 1 January 2021 and is valid until 31 December 2024. From 1 May 2021, authors affiliated to swissuniversities member institutions and further institutional clients of the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries will be able to publish their accepted research papers fully and immediately in Open Access in Wiley's nearly 1’400 hybrid journals under the Swiss agreement. In addition, this agreement provides full reading rights and permanent access to Wiley's journal portfolio for all researchers and students from the participating institutions.

The 2021 agreement is available on the website of the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries at this link. Further details on the scope of the agreement can be found  here.

In 2021, the negotiating parties also concluded a favourable agreement for the Cochrane Library. The Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS/ASSM) continues to be the patron of this product. Further details can be found at https://www.samw.ch/en/Projects/Overview-of-projects/Cochrane-Library.html 

Media release, 29.04.2021