The ULL presents at the CRUE Research Conference the latest advances in transformative agreements to promote open science

The Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE) recently held its 30th CRUE-R&D&I Research Conference. The event took place at the Cuenca Campus of the University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM) and brought together more than 580 experts in research and science policy to define new strategies for university research in Spain. The University of La Laguna was represented by a delegation from the Vice-Rectorate for Research and Transfer, headed by Vice-Rector Antonio Aparicio, and the Director of the Library, Gonzalo Rey, who participated as a speaker on one of the panels.

The plenary sessions included presentations and expert panels that addressed topics such as talent attraction, employability, internationalization, and digital transformation, along with funding and knowledge transfer as core themes. The program also incorporated a gender perspective and the promotion of young talent. In addition, the sector's five networks (RedUGI, RedDIVULGA, RedOTRI, RedOE, and REBIUN) met to advance their specific work in their areas of expertise.

There was a panel discussion dedicated to transformative agreements (TAs), which included the participation of Gonzalo Rey Pinzón, Director of the Library of the University of La Laguna, in his capacity as a member of the Crue-CSIC General Negotiation Commission for this matter. As Gonzalo explained in his presentation, TAs are a business model that emerged ten years ago within the scientific publishing market, driven by university and research center libraries worldwide. The aim is to move from reading subscription contracts to publishing contracts—from paying to read to paying to read and publish. These TAs are framed within the desire and need to promote open access and, ultimately, open science.

In his speech, Rey Pinzón highlighted how, thanks to the transformative agreements of the last four years, at a lower cost than would have been paid for just reading, universities

Spanish researchers from the CSIC have published more than 46,000 open access articles in the leading journals of the publishers covered by these agreements: Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, and ACS. These more than 46,000 articles represent an approximate cost of 129 million euros, which is the amount the Spanish science and technology system has saved thanks to these agreements, thus positively assessing this type of arrangement.