The Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), also known as the Spanish National Research Council, signs up to the Biochemical Society and Portland Press’ pilot Read & Publish transformative deal. Corresponding authors at CSIC institutions will receive unlimited open access (OA) publishing across the entire journal portfolio.

The CSIC has 120 research institutes across Spain, joining 130 other organisations already participating in this Read & Publish scheme. This pilot transitional agreement will help CSIC´s researchers working in biology and the life sciences to gain more impact and visibility for their articles. Portland Press is the Biochemical Society’s publisher, and its pilot Read & Publish scheme, offering unlimited OA publishing, first went live in 2020 as a means of transforming more of its published research and review articles to OA. This Read & Publish agreement guarantees all corresponding authors OA publishing by default at no additional author-facing charges.

Professor Richard Reece, Chair of Portland Press Board, Trustee of the Biochemical Society and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Kent, says: “We are delighted to work with CSIC on signing up to our growing Read & Publish offerings. The CSIC is determined to contribute to making academic publications more accessible, which aligns with our own mission, transforming to open scholarship. We look forward to publishing OA research from CSIC authors on diverse topics in molecular biology and the life sciences.”

Agnès Ponsati, CSIC‐Director at the Unit of Information Resources for Research, says: “Our institution’s commitment to open science contemplates the progressive transformation of the traditional subscription deals with scientific publishers, towards agreements that promote immediate open access. We are happy to have achieved this agreement with Portland Press. We have worked with other big publishers, but we want to offer equal support to others of unquestionable scientific relevance, as it is the case with the Biochemical Society. We are eager to contribute with them in their various ways of transitioning toward open access.”

Portland Press publishes seven journals covering different areas within molecular biology and the life sciences; two are fully open access (OA) titles and there are five hybrid journals where content is usually published behind a paywall, with authors either choosing to pay an article publishing charge to have their work published OA or benefitting from default, charge-free OA publishing where their institution has signed up to a Read & Publish pilot.

To support and accelerate a transition to OA, these pilot Read & Publish offerings provide an alternative to regular subscriptions. The Biochemical Society and Portland Press are committed to a sustainable transition to a more open scholarly publishing landscape and our Read & Publish initiative builds on the principles set out in our Open Scholarship position statement.

Visit our Open Scholarship site for more information.