Flexibility and freedom to experiment are critical for any publishing team when building a strategy to automate and manage so-called, “transformative agreements.”

With COVID-19 accelerating the pressure to “publish open” and to adopt sustainable Open Access (OA) business models, the complexity of these transformative agreements and the number of stakeholders involved across publishers and institutions presents significant strategic and management challenges.

A panel discussion in December for STM Week 2020 explored how these agreements can become a test of data quality, technology and operational acumen for all parties involved.

“At ACS, we developed for ourselves a set of principles to focus on when getting to a transformative agreement,” said Sybille Geisenheyner, Director, Open Science Strategy & Licensing, ACS Publications.

“For example, the researcher/author is really key for us, and he/she should be the first one supported by such agreements. Another point is to make those deals sustainable, so we can sustain our mission in the future. For us to go into those partnerships, we think it is important that both sides recognize the value and appreciate the role of society publishers and scholarly communication,” she explained.

In addition to Geisenheyner, program participants included Chuck Hemenway, Director, Rightsholder Sales, Copyright Clearance Center, and Caren Milloy, Director, Licensing, Jisc.

“The pandemic has taught us all the value of digital agility,” noted CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “In the last 10 months, we’ve learned to respect data as critical to survival. From the data on the latest surge of the Coronavirus to the data on up-time for mission-critical systems, we must watch the numbers closely.”