Transformative Agreements (TAs) have been widely lauded as a mechanism to transition subscription content toward Open Access (OA). On paper, these deals offer incremental solutions. However, a growing concern is whether this shift, driven largely by commercial giants, risks trading the core value of equity for administrative efficiency.
While TAs promote OA publication, they often operate as hybrid models that still retain most content behind a paywall. Critically, these agreements—which allow researchers both to access subscription content and publish OA—are typically only affordable to institutions or countries with significant funds. The negotiation process can be protracted, and it tends to lock researchers into publishing in journals based on institutional affordability rather than disciplinary fit.
This dynamic is systematically concentrating scholarly publishing power in the hands of the very commercial behemoths whose subscription monopolies originally necessitated the Open Access movement.
The critical consequence of this trend is known as the "Indie Squeeze." Organizations like society publishers, university presses, and independent, mission-driven OA pioneers created sustainable publishing models, championed researcher rights, and proved that OA could function effectively. Yet, as institutional OA budgets increasingly flow toward funding TAs with large commercial entities, independent publishers often find themselves outside the TA ecosystem, leading to declining submission rates.
The transition to Open Access, originally conceived to democratize knowledge and dismantle publisher monopolies, instead risks entrenching those monopolies under new economic models.
The strategic necessity for maintaining a healthy and diverse scholarly ecosystem lies in utilizing Institutional Agreements (IAs) that specifically support small, independent publishers and advance science. Directing a portion of transformative funds toward independent OA models is essential to prevent the consolidation of OA publishing among a handful of commercial giants and to realize the diverse promise of open science.
Institutional agreements with independent presses accelerate scientific progress while strengthening the scholarly ecosystem because small, mission-driven publishers often specialize in emerging disciplines or underserved fields, providing critical innovative research that commercial organizations may overlook.
By supporting these institutional partnerships, libraries and consortia maintain crucial competitive pressure for quality, foster innovation in publishing models, and ensure that diverse voices shape scholarly communication.
For academic libraries grappling with the complexity of contemporary scholarly workflows, institutional agreements offer significant administrative relief. Traditional Article Processing Charge (APC) management involves labor-intensive tasks: verifying author eligibility, processing payment requests, tracking budgets, reconciling invoices, and generating usage reports. Institutional agreements reduce this complexity into streamlined workflows, allowing libraries to negotiate one time, enabling researchers to publish freely thereafter. Payment processing transforms into predictable annual agreements, eliminating budget uncertainty.
This simplification goes beyond mere convenience; it represents a systemic shift from rationing access to scholarly communication toward enabling it. When financial barriers are eliminated through IAs, early-career researchers lacking substantial grant funding gain equal access to OA publishing alongside their well-funded colleagues, effectively operationalizing equity. This broader access is crucial, particularly for researchers at institutions facing financial constraints in subscribing to various journals.
These agreements also generate clear, quantifiable outcomes, which is vital for securing continued institutional investment. Libraries can demonstrate value through concrete metrics, including the number of articles published OA, estimated APC savings, and increased institutional research visibility and impact due to the larger audience provided by Open Access.
Independent publishers contribute critical elements to the scholarly communication ecosystem: disciplinary expertise, editorial independence, community governance, and a willingness to experiment with new publishing models.
As libraries and consortia negotiate future agreements, the key strategic question must extend beyond simple administrative efficiency and "good value." Instead, institutions must consider: “Does this agreement advance our vision for an equitable, diverse, sustainable scholarly communication ecosystem?”
The consequences of failing to utilize IAs to achieve strategic goals extend beyond the fate of individual publishers. A scholarly communication ecosystem dominated by a few large commercial players, even ones nominally transitioning to OA, concentrates power, reduces competition, and ultimately limits innovation.
The next step belongs to the library consortia and institutions. If the goal is truly diversity, innovation, and mission-driven publishing, then directing a portion of transformative funds toward independent OA models is not merely an alternative path—it is a strategic necessity for securing a more equitable and resilient scholarly ecosystem.