Update: Elsevier Read and Publish Agreement

We have important news about ACU Library's Elsevier subscription. Here's how it might affect your publishing and read access.

ACU Library, as a member of the CAUL (Council of Australasian University Librarians) consortium, has been negotiating a new read and publish agreement for our Elsevier subscription. Unfortunately, the negotiations failed to reach an agreement and discussions have been paused.

Read the media release - CAUL announces landmark new Taylor & Francis agreement, while pausing negotiations with Elsevier (PDF, 268KB).

Our Elsevier journal Read and Publish Agreement ends 31 December 2025, so access may cease for some journal titles from early 2026. At this stage we do not know if this will occur, but we are currently preparing mitigations just in case. Our audits of Leganto reading lists and direct links in Canvas show that at least half of the Elsevier journal content will remain available due to post-termination access agreements and via other means such as alternative subscriptions (for example ClinicalKey), open access sources, document delivery services and other channels. Unavailable content may need to be sourced from other publishers.

These negotiations do not include our other Elsevier subscription agreements, including Scopus, SciVal, ebooks, and ClinicalKey.

What is the impact of no agreement?

Read access (primarily for teaching) and publishing (for ACU authors) are both impacted.

Read access impact

From early next year, some links to Elsevier journals in Leganto reading lists and Canvas may no longer work. To check if your units are impacted, please download the file of impacted Leganto/Canvas reading lists by unit (XLSX, 21KB).

Library staff will work with you if you need help updating or replacing links. It's also important to consider this impact as you rollover or develop your 2026 reading list(s).

Publishing impact

Article processing charges (APCs) for Elsevier hybrid journals are no longer covered by an agreement. Authors can still publish with Elsevier but will be responsible for any APCs to enable open access (OA) publishing. This was the case prior to the Read and Publish Agreement being in place.

However, we do not encourage paying APCs as funding OA mandates can be met by submitting author-accepted manuscripts to our repository, ACU Research Bank. Authors are also encouraged to consider publishing in alternative sources with OA agreements as well as checking the Directory of OA Journals.

Further information

ACU Library will provide regular updates on the Elsevier updates webpage about any progress with the Elsevier negotiations and mitigation strategies.

Contact us if you have any questions.