UMass Amherst Libraries Signs Agreement with Company of Biologists to Cover Open Access Publication Fees

The UMass Amherst Libraries signed a three-year agreement (2024-2026) with the Company of Biologists, the non-profit publisher of Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms, and Biology Open. UMass Amherst corresponding authors can now publish their research articles open access without publication fees in any of these five peer-reviewed journals. Furthermore, UMass Amherst community members have access to all current and archived content in these journals.

Open access publications allow authors to retain their copyright and reach a wider audience, since there is no cost to readers to access their work. The Libraries have a longstanding Commitment to Open and facilitates participation in high quality open scholarship for faculty and students with numerous provider agreements.

“This three-year agreement with the Company of Biologists is an exciting realization of both our commitment to open scholarship and of our land-grant mission,” says Nandita S. Mani, Dean of University Libraries. “For researchers and other UMass Amherst community members to have access to peer-reviewed journals with no cost for either publication or access allows for greater benefit to the community, the Commonwealth, and the world.”

Lisa Komoroske, Assistant Professor of Environmental Conservation, published “Smaller body size under warming is not due to gill-oxygen limitation in a cold-water salmonid” in the February 2024 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology under the new agreement. “The Libraries’ open access read and publish agreement with the Company of Biologists is great news. The Journal of Experimental Biology is a home journal for my research team and many others on campus I know. Making our science accessible to as wide an audience as possible increases the impact of our work in our field as well as broader conservation applications.”

Elizabeth Rogers, PhD student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, published “Water restriction increases oxidation of endogenous amino acids in house sparrows (Passer domesticus)” in the March 2024 issue of The Journal of Experimental Biology. She noted, “Publishing open access is a vital part of conducting equitable science by making research publications accessible to people who operate outside traditional academic institutions. However, the fees to publish open access are a barrier, especially for graduate student researchers. This agreement with the Company of Biologists will greatly contribute to the impact of biology research conducted at UMass.”

For more information about publishing under this agreement or participating in open scholarship, contact Christine Turner, Scholarly Communication Librarian.