• These are contracts that transform traditional magazine subscription agreements between publishers and universities or consortia. These agreements allow articles published by the authors to be published in immediate open access when they are members of the institution that signs the agreement without paying an APC (Article Processing Charges).

• Thus, budgets previously earmarked for "pay to access" allow you to gradually move to "pay to publish in open access." Therefore, the transformative agreements allow to publish in open access a part of what the research staff of the institution publishes in the journals of a publishing house and in the long run, in its entirety. 

• In case of publishing articles in co-authorship with members of other institutions and / or countries, it is recommended to consult theTHAT C (Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges), global register of transformative agreements.

• In 2019, the CRUE undertook to promote the Open Science. Subsequently, a committee of the CRUE, the CSIC and the university libraries have negotiated transformative agreements with the Elsevier publishing houses, Springer Nature and Wiley and with the American Chemical Society (ACS).  

• The agreements are in force from 2021 until 2024.

• Each publisher provides a certain number of APCs in the form of vouchers or a certain amount to publish in immediate open access. It also determines in which journals APCs can be used by indicating specific journal titles. 

• From the platform of each publisher and during the process of publishing an article, the publisher offers the author of correspondence the possibility of publishing the article in immediate open access within the conditions of the agreement between the 'publishing house and its institution.

• During the process of accepting an article, when the correspondent indicates that he / she wants to publish in open access, the publisher contacts the Publications and Archives Library Service, which checks that all the requirements are met.

• For articles published during 2022, the allocation criteria are as follows, inclusive:

1. The author of the correspondence is linked to UPC at the time of submitting the article to the publisher for acceptance and publication. The link to the UPC can be as a PDI, PAS, research fellow or doctoral student and is verified from the corporate identity system Digital Identity UPC.
2. In the article, the affiliation of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in the signature of the authors UPC according to the established guidelines.
3. The correspondent has the code ORCID, this is reported in DRAC and is shown in FUTUR.
4. The author of the correspondence is linked to a research group.

The APC assignment for research groups UPC and editorial is done according to the following criteria (until 22.06.22):

- Groups with equal or more than 10 PAR type 1 points for EDP (full-time doctoral teaching staff and research staff): 1 APC for GR and publisher.
- Groups that have equal or more than 3 EDP and equal or more than 80 PAR points type 1 for EDP (both conditions): 2 APCs for GR and editorial

- Report: Indicators of research activities (PAR 2020) and transfer of research results (PATT 2020)

• The SBPA requests a copy of the article from the author of the correspondence in case of not being able to access it from the publication platform,

• If the article is published as part of a project, please note that funding institutions require a license. Creative Commons CC BY. Publishers already assign the CC by or let the author choose one.

• The APCs are assigned in order of request on the platform of each publisher, until the available bonds included in the transformative agreement with each publisher are exhausted.  

• When a publisher does not have more APCs, it is reported in the section of specific conditions of the publisher.

• In case of publishing articles in co-authorship with members of other institutions and / or countries, it is recommended to consult theTHAT C (Efficiency and Standards for Article Charges), global register of transformative agreements.

• List of articles published by research staff UPC in 2021 with assigned APCs.

• The agreement is to be published only in hybrid journals: they are traditional journals that offer authors the possibility of their individual articles being open to everyone in exchange for paying for an APC. Other articles in the same journal can only be accessed by subscription (Source: MIT).
• The transformative agreement with Elsevier also includes a 10% discount on the price to be paid for publishing openly in all the gold journals of this publisher, after verifying that the author of the correspondence is research staff. UPC. In gold magazines all articles are open access. 
• Relation of magazine titles of Elsevier where to publish in open access. 
• Summary sheet of the agreement with this publisher. 
• More information
• Publisher contact address for authors: support@elsevier.com

• In the transformative agreement with Elsevier, the UPC initially has 172 APCs for 2022.
• Currently, APCs are still available. In the event that they run out before the end of the year, this section will be reported.

• The agreement is to be published only in hybrid journals: they are traditional journals that offer authors the possibility of their individual articles being freely accessible to everyone in exchange for the payment of an APC. Other articles in the same journal can only be accessed by subscription (Source: MIT).
• List of magazine titles of American Chemical Society where to publish in open access.
• Summary sheet of the agreement with this publisher.
• More information.

• In the transformational agreement with the American Chemical Society, the UPC it initially has 10 APCs for 2022.
• Currently, APCs are still available. In the event that they run out before the end of the year, this section will be reported.