Portugal National Funder FCT Agrees Transformative Agreement with Elsevier

Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics has entered into a transformative agreement with b-on to enable continued reading access for researchers affiliated with b-on institutions and open access publishing. This is the first time Elsevier has signed a transformative agreement to support Portugal. It will benefit the member institutions with access to Elsevier's extensive collection of journals on ScienceDirect. The cost of publishing open access is covered under the terms of this agreement up to a pre-set annual cap. When publishing open access in hybrid journals, eligible corresponding authors do not have to pay an article publishing charge (APC). The new three-year contract will run until 31^st October 2024.

Joana Novais, Manager of the b-on Consortium said: “This agreement lays an important stepping stone in the direction of Open Access in Portugal. It is a great honour for b-on to be able to contribute to this transition to OA by providing the authors of its member institutions the possibility to publish an annual average of 2000 OA articles in hybrid journals without incremental costs.”

The b-on Consortium was founded in 2004 and represents 64 institutions, mainly higher education and research institutions across Portugal. It is managed by FCCN, a unit of FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology(opens in new tab/window).

William Rubens, Vice President, Elsevier said: "We are delighted to be working with the b-on Consortium to support their open access ambitions. We are thrilled to have agreed to our first Open Access agreement with them to ensure access to high-quality research and enable Portuguese researchers to publish with Elsevier, enabling them to share their findings globally."

Elsevier aims to find the right solutions to meet the diverse needs of academic institutions, students, researchers, and funders worldwide while ensuring published research remains trusted and of high quality. Our approach with all customers is to understand their objectives and work with them to achieve these in an economically sustainable way while preserving the quality, integrity, and sustainability of the peer-review publishing system.

For more on how Elsevier supports open access, please visit our website(opens in new tab/window).

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Notes for editors

About b-on

b-on provides unlimited and permanent access to the full texts of thousands of scientific journals and online ebooks from some of the most important content providers, through subscriptions negotiated at national level.

It started operating in March 2004 and is today a reference in access to international scientific information.

It brings together higher education institutions, R&D institutions, hospitals, public institutions and private non-profit institutions.

b-on currently reaches around 380.000 individuals affiliated with its 64 member institutions.

About Elsevier

As a global leader in information and analytics, Elsevier helps researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. We do this by facilitating insights and critical decision-making for customers across the global research and health ecosystems. In everything we publish, we uphold the highest standards of quality and integrity. We bring that same rigor to our information analytics solutions for researchers, academic leaders, funders, R&D-intensive corporations, doctors, and nurses.  

Elsevier employs 9,000 people worldwide, including over 2,500 technologists. We have supported the work of our research and health partners for more than 140 years. Growing from our roots in publishing, we offer knowledge and valuable analytics that help our users make breakthroughs and drive societal progress. Digital solutions such as ScienceDirect,  Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath support strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, medical education, and nursing education. Researchers and healthcare professionals rely on over 2,800 journals, including The Lancet(opens in new tab/window) and Cell(opens in new tab/window); 46,000+ eBook titles; and iconic reference works, such as Gray's Anatomy. With the Elsevier Foundation(opens in new tab/window) and our external Inclusion & Diversity Advisory Board, we work in partnership with diverse stakeholders to advance inclusion and diversity in science, research and healthcare in developing countries and around the world. 

Elsevier is part of RELX(opens in new tab/window), a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers.