As part of proposals agreed with the University Executive Board to significantly reduce Library spending on resources over a three-year period in response both to financial pressures and ongoing concerns about the sustainability of the commercial scientific publishing model, the library is continuing to review its journal subscriptions. The main focus for the start of 2026 is on the largest ‘big deals’ (including Sage, Springer Nature, Taylor and Francis, and Wiley) which are due to expire in December 2025. You can read more about the other resources under review here (login required).
Jisc is negotiating with the publishers on behalf of the UK higher education sector to work towards achieving cost effective and fair deals. Depending on the publishers’ offers, subscribing to all of these ‘big deals’ will potentially no longer be affordable and/or not align with our principles of cost constraint and value for money. If publishers are able to offer deals that are acceptable to the sector, the University will then decide which to subscribe to, based on affordability and value.
There have been several rounds of consultations from Jisc and progress is being made. We will update this page as soon as further news becomes available. Further information about ‘big deals’ and the Jisc negotiations can be found on the Challenges in Scholarly Publishing page.
This article was originally published 20 August, and updated 14 October.