Open access publisher Frontiers and the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC) have established a national framework to support open access publishing for eligible member institutions in South Africa. The agreement marks the first partnership between SANLiC and a fully open access publisher.
Glenn Truran, Director of SANLiC, noted that South African research output in Frontiers’ fully open access journals had been increasing. He explained that the agreement would give member institutions a structured approach to supporting open access publishing, improve cost predictability, and help South African researchers make their work openly available to the international research community.
Under the agreement, participating universities, research councils, and government research institutions will be able to publish in Frontiers’ full journal portfolio through a centralized payment and invoicing arrangement. Institutions will cover the publication fees, removing direct publication charges for eligible individual authors. The framework is also intended to help institutions plan budgets and reduce administrative work associated with payments.
Tom Thayer, Director of Institutional Partnerships at Frontiers, noted that the agreement with SANLiC and its member institutions would strengthen the publisher’s research community in South Africa. He added that closer collaboration with university libraries would expand open access publishing opportunities, reduce barriers for authors, and increase the global visibility and reach of South African research.
Institutions can join the agreement by the end of 2026, with participation taking effect from November 1, 2026.
Institutions that join before the end of 2026 will also receive access to Frontiers’ FAIR² Data Management offering, which supports the creation of compliant, citable, and reusable research data outputs as part of their open access publishing commitments.
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