| GENERAL INFORMATION | |
| Publisher | The Electrochemical Society |
| Agreement ID | ecs2026tib |
| Agreement labeling | ECS Plus |
| Is the agreement document publicly available? | No |
| Agreement period | 1/1/2026 – 12/31/2026 |
| Consortia / Institution | TIB Consortium |
| Country | Germany |
| COST | |
| How do the costs of the agreement relate to the previous agreement with the publisher? | Cost increase |
| Comments on cost development | There is a moderate surcharge on the subscription costs for an unlimited number of open access articles |
| Describe how the cost model has changed from the previous agreement (e.g., move from subscription to R&P / from capped to uncapped / from single APC payments to flat fee, etc.) | Continuation of cost model from previous agreement (“ECS Plus”: surcharge on reading fee to cover publishing services) |
| Read-access costs
If the agreement includes read access to subscription content, is a split of the cost between read access and publishing services defined? |
Yes |
| If a split of the cost between read access and publishing services is defined, what percentage of the overall agreement cost relates to read access? | More than 50% |
| PUBLISHING-RELATED TERMS | |
| Publication output
What is the approximate number of annual corresponding author publications from your institution/consortium with the publisher (in closed, hybrid and fully OA journals)? |
25 |
| Is the agreement’s provision for OA publishing capped (e.g., limited to a specific number of articles per year) or uncapped? | Uncapped |
| Coverage
Are all journals relevant to your affiliated authors (i.e., journals in which you expect them to publish) eligible for OA publishing under the agreement? |
No |
| Are APC-based full open access journals covered by the agreement? | No, only hybrid titles are included |
| Are journals operating under other business models (S2O, Diamond OA, etc.) covered by the agreement? | No |
| Article types
Eligible article types |
Original research articles, Review articles, Letters, Special issue papers |
| Risk sharing
What risk-sharing mechanisms exist in cases of exceeding or not reaching the anticipated number of OA publications under the agreement? |
No risk-sharing mechanism |
| Comments on publishing-related terms | Articles by both corresponding and co-authors are covered by the agreement |
| READ ACCESS-RELATED TERMS | |
| Coverage of read access
If the agreement includes read access to subscription content, is access to all relevant journals required by your users covered by the agreement? |
Yes |
| Perpetual access
If the agreement includes read access to subscription content, are perpetual access (post cancellation/termination) rights included? |
Yes |
| If perpetual access rights to subscription content is included, are there associated fees (for continued access to the platform, local hosting, data delivery, etc.)? | No |
| OA WORKFLOW | |
| Author workflow and verification
The date for articles’ eligibility is based on: |
Submission date |
| Describe the mechanisms used by the publisher for matching authors with an eligible institution: | Authors must select their institutions membership in ECS Plus at submission |
| How do consortia or institutions verify author eligibility and approve OA funding? | No process in place (publications are deemed automatically verified/approved) |
| Does the agreement include mechanisms to correct mistakenly approved, missed, or not approved publications (e.g., retrospective OA conversion of closed articles or refunding paid APCs)? | No |
| Does the publisher’s reporting on publications satisfy the needs of your institution (frequency, metadata fields, data quality, etc.)? | No |
| Comments on publisher reporting | Reporting lacks standardization and is delivered late, inclusion of co-authors under the agreement makes it hard to verify payment responsibility of participating institutions, publisher is under no obligation to add articles or change their OA status retroactively |
| May authors be charged additional publication fees (such as page charges, article development charges, etc.)? | Not part of the negotiations/not discussed |
| How would you assess the practical implementation of the agreement? | Deficient |
| Comments on workflows | Authors are responsible for indicating their eligibility at submission, there is no automatic matching in place |
| PUBLISHING LICENSES | |
| Author’s licenses
Open access license types included |
CC BY preference, exceptions allowed |
| Has the author workflow been customized to direct authors to a certain license (e.g., by making the option for CC BY the preselected default)? | Not part of the negotiations/not discussed |
| If the agreement covers licenses more restrictive than CC BY, do the License to Publish agreements (LtPs) offered to authors differ from the publisher’s standard LtP? | Yes |
| How LtPs offered to authors differ from the publisher’s standard LtP | Regardless of which CC License an author choses, the authors only grants a non-exclusive licence to the publisher (confirmed by publisher in writing, not part of the Agreement) |
| In addition to the OA publishing provision, does the agreement include mechanisms to make author accepted manuscripts open access? | No |
| OVERALL ASSESSMENT AND COMMENTS | |
| Please share your overall assessment of this agreement with the community. Were negotiation goals (such as open access, cost development, etc.) reached? Which elements would have to be adjusted in future agreements? | Regardless of which CC License an author choses, the authors only grants a non-exclusive licence to the publisher (confirmed by publisher in writing, not part of the Agreement) |
Request contact to the licensee: contact@esac-initiative.org
