| GENERAL INFORMATION | |
| Publisher | The Royal Society |
| Agreement ID | trs2026kaust |
| Agreement labeling | Read and Publish Agreement |
| Is the agreement document publicly available? | No |
| Agreement period | 1/1/2026 – 12/31/2028 |
| Consortia / Institution | KAUST |
| Country | Saudi Arabia |
| COST | |
| How do the costs of the agreement relate to the previous agreement with the publisher? | Agreement costs within the range of the previous spending level |
| 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)? |
7 |
| 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? |
Yes |
| Are APC-based full open access journals covered by the agreement? | Yes, alongside hybrid titles |
| 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, Editorials |
| 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 |
| 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: |
Acceptance date |
| Describe the mechanisms used by the publisher for matching authors with an eligible institution: | PIDs (Ringgold, ROR, ORCID, etc.), Text-matching, Email domain verification |
| How do consortia or institutions verify author eligibility and approve OA funding? | Through the CCC RightsLink Platform |
| 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.)? | Yes |
| Comments on publisher reporting | According to the signed deal, publisher should send quarterly reports, which is the expected minimum |
| May authors be charged additional publication fees (such as page charges, article development charges, etc.)? | No |
| How would you assess the practical implementation of the agreement? | OK |
| PUBLISHING LICENSES | |
| Author’s licenses
Open access license types included |
CC BY mandatory |
Request contact to the licensee: contact@esac-initiative.org

