Institutional publishing agreements
eLife’s institutional publishing agreements contribute towards a sustainable and equitable open access publishing ecosystem.
About eLife
eLife is a non-profit organisation committed to improving peer review and scientific publishing.
Using the publish-review-curate (PRC) approach, we are reforming research assessment, improving research culture, and developing open technologies to support our mission.
Uncapped publishing scheme
Our uncapped scheme is a two-year agreement whereby institutions or funders pay a pre-set fixed fee to allow their authors and those affiliated with their child organisations (as defined by the Research Organisation Registry) to publish an unlimited number of articles.
Authors can publish in eLife without author-facing charges, if affiliated with the organisation participating in the publishing agreement or one of its child organisations (as defined by the Research Organisation Registry).
Benefits for participating organisations
Contribute towards equitable and sustainable publishing. No individual author fee or financial barrier for authors wanting to publish in eLife.
Payment process simplified: bypassed by authors and streamlined for participating organisations.
Protection against eventual increase in publishing costs - allows for more predictable budgeting.
Centralised publishing scheme
The centralised scheme is an agreement whereby the participating organisation covers the costs of the number of articles published in eLife by its authors.
Authors can publish in eLife without author-facing charges, if affiliated with the organisation participating in the publishing scheme.
Benefits for participating organisations
Contribute towards equitable and sustainable publishing. No individual author fee or financial barrier for authors wanting to publish in eLife.
Payment process simplified: bypassed by authors and streamlined for participating organisations.
Main features
Uncapped scheme | Centralised scheme | |
Agreement length | Two years | Continues on a rolling basis unless terminated by either party |
Publishing model | eLife Model: Reviewed Preprints and Version of Record | eLife Model: Reviewed Preprints and Version of Record |
Eligibility | Articles on which corresponding authors are affiliated with the participating organisation or one of its child organisations (as defined by the Research Organisation Registry) | Articles on which corresponding authors are affiliated with the participating organisation |
Coverage | Covers unlimited publications | Covers number of published articles |
Fee structure | Paid at the start of each year (fee is preset for both years) | Paid in instalments |
Participating organisations
Below are the institutions participating in our publishing agreements. For each listed institution, its child organisations, as defined in the Research Organization Registry, also participate in the publishing agreement (applies to the uncapped scheme only).
The MIT Libraries - Uncapped scheme
The University of Sheffield - Uncapped scheme
Imperial College London - Uncapped scheme
The Francis Crick Institute - Uncapped scheme
Howard Hughes Medical Institute - Centralised scheme
Max Planck Society - Centralised scheme
Bibsam Consortium - National Library of Sweden - Centralised scheme
Publishing through an agreement
If you are affiliated with any of these institutions or their child organisations and would like to publish with eLife, please ensure your primary affiliation is listed at the point of submission and we'll take care of the rest.
To check if you're eligible to publish through an existing publishing agreement or if you'd like more information, please get in touch.
Testimonials
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Through our Comprehensive Content Strategy, the University of Sheffield is committed to the equitable transformation of scholarly communications by investing in alternative approaches to the dissemination of research. The eLife Model represents such an approach offering a direct and practical solution for our researchers to try its innovative route to publication.
Peter Barr, University of Sheffield -
We want to be able to support a variety of publishing models to better enable access to research, and create more equitable paths to publishing for all authors. This agreement means our authors can be part of eLife’s publishing programme at no additional cost to them, and that we welcome different routes for the communication of research.
Ruth Harrison, Imperial College London -
Scientific publishing is evolving, and so is the Max Planck Society’s approach. Our institutional backing of eLife since 2013 reflects our commitment to fostering new standards of openness, transparency, and evaluation in research. By partnering with eLife, the Max Planck Society helps ensure that researchers have access to innovative and fair publishing models, furthering our shared goal of advancing science.
Christian Doeller, Max Planck Society -
HHMI's institutional publishing agreement with eLife simplifies open access publishing for our scientists. These agreements represent an important step forward in creating community-driven models for scientific publishing.
Michele Avissar-Whiting, HHMI -
Through our Centralised institutional publishing agreement with eLife, Swedish researchers can publish openly without individual charges, supporting a more equitable and sustainable open access publishing ecosystem.
Erik Stattin, Head of the Unit for Research Collaboration at the National Library of Sweden
