Griffith University supports the Sustainable Development Goals

Read and Publish Agreements

The Library

Please note that this is an on-going project.

Project Description

Read and Publish agreements are ‘transformative’ agreements combining the cost of reading (access via subscriptions paid by a library) and publishing (Article Processing Charges (APCs)). Australian academic libraries have adopted these agreements with many publishers. For example in 2022–2023, 20,570 articles were made openly accessible without payment of APCs (Missingham, 2024).

Read and Publish agreements give Griffith researchers the option to make their work openly available to anyone with access to the internet, any time.

Griffith Library has been a signatory to selected Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL) Read and Publish agreements since 2020.

Missingham, R. (2024). Australian academic libraries and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. IFLA Journal, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/03400352241252973

Project Personnel and Beneficiaries

Read & Publish agreements benefit researchers, helping them make their work open without the financial burden of paying an Article Processing Charge (APC). The agreements also benefit humanity – research that may have been locked behind a paywall is now available to anyone with an internet connection at any time.

Outcomes to Date

Between Oct 2021-March 2024, Griffith researchers published 1,089 papers in 698 journals via R&P agreements, resulting in a cost avoidance of several million for Griffith since the agreements commenced.

Journal titles with the most accepted Griffith-authored papers were predominantly in health, followed by science and business. Opening research to community, practitioners, clinicians and industry means research is utilised in the form of policies, treatments, decision making, innovation and so on.

Project Significance

Read and Publish agreements directly support several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By providing free, high-quality research, Griffith is :

– promoting inclusive and equitable quality education (SDG 4)
– supporting and fostering innovation (SDG 9)
– supporting public access to information for participatory decision-making (SDG 16)
– fostering a culture of sharing and collaboration, to create partnerships for the goals (SDG 17).

Project start
2020
Academic area
Library
Project type
Project location
  • Gold Coast
  • Logan
  • Mt Gravatt
  • Nathan
  • South Bank
Project geographical impact
  • Local
  • National
  • International
Publication date
February 21, 2025
Last updated
3:19 pm, February 21, 2025