The University of California (UC) and BioOne, a content aggregator in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences, have finalized a five-year agreement, extending through 2029, that grants researchers at nine UC campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory access to BioOne Complete. The arrangement includes full participation in BioOne’s Subscribe to Open (S2O) pilot from 2026 to 2028, aligning with shared goals around sustainable open access and equitable scholarly communication.
The S2O pilot, one of the largest of its kind, involves 71 titles from 54 global societies, museums, and research organizations. This initiative enables conditional open access to these publications, contingent on sufficient support from library subscribers. The agreement ensures UC institutions maintain full access to the BioOne Complete collection, which includes more than 230,000 articles in biological sciences, while actively supporting the transition of selected titles to open access.
Authors affiliated with the UC system publishing in S2O-participating journals may benefit from broader dissemination of their work, reinforcing the institutions' commitment to increasing global visibility and impact of research. During the pilot, BioOne Complete will operate as a mixed-model platform comprising subscribed, open access, and S2O journals. If the funding threshold required for open access is not met, content from participating journals will remain available exclusively to subscribers.
The agreement builds on a long-standing relationship between BioOne and the UC system, whose libraries were among the original charter supporters of the platform. The collaboration emphasizes mutual priorities: maintaining access to high-quality research, ensuring long-term viability of nonprofit publishers, and advancing a more open scholarly communication ecosystem.
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