How open are hybrid journals included in transformative agreements?

Abstract: The ongoing controversy surrounding transformative agreements, which aim to transition subscription-based journal publishing to full open access, highlights the need for large-scale studies assessing the impact of these agreements on hybrid open access. By combining multiple open data sources, including cOAlition S Journal Checker, Crossref, and OpenAlex, this study presents a novel approach that analyses over 700 agreements. Results suggest a strong growth in open access, from 4.3% in 2018 to 15% in 2022. Over five years, 11,189 hybrid journals provided open access to 742,369 out of 8,146,958 articles (9.1%). Authors who could make use of transformative agreements contributed 328,957 open access articles (44%) during this period, reaching a peak in 2022 with 143,615 out of 249,511 open access articles (58%). While this trend was predominantly driven by the three commercial publishers Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley, open access uptake varied substantially across journals, publishers, disciplines, and countries. Particularly, the OECD and BRICS areas revealed different publication trends. In conclusion, this study suggests that current levels of implementation of transformative agreements is insufficient to bring about a large-scale transition to full open access.