Transformative Agreements

Thursday 9 October 2025, 14:30-15:30, Open Science Café with Paola Galimberti and Elena Giglia

Agenda

14:30 – 14:40 Connection opens and welcome remarks by Elena Giglia
14:40 - 15:00 Presentation by Paola Galimberti
15:00 – 15:30 Q&A and discussion

Summary

There was a moment (which is still ongoing) when people believed that changing the business model would lead to a complete democratisation of knowledge, overcoming economic and linguistic inequalities. Nine years after the first transformative agreements—initially praised as a real turning point in scholarly communication—there is clear evidence that this hoped-for transformation has not happened (and will not happen in the short-to-medium term). Instead, the position of big commercial publishing monopolies has become even stronger, with institutions paying more and more for increasingly less reliable publishing services.

Performance-based evaluation systems (like the Italian one) have influenced how researchers behave, though not always in a positive way. This has created a scientific publishing system that is far from ideal and needs a radical overhaul.

This presentation aims to describe the current state of scholarly publishing, particularly regarding transformative agreements, to help us understand exactly how much we are paying and what we are getting for our money.

Speakers

Elena Giglia (moderator): Head of the Open Access Project Unit at the University of Turin. She plays an active role in national and international working groups on Open Science and is a partner in several Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects. She was part of the Ministry of University and Research committee that drafted the National Plan for Open Science, which is soon to be published. She was also a member of the "Open Access and New Indicators" working group at ANVUR (2013-2014). She regularly participates in national and international conferences on various aspects of Open Science, including evaluation, and is highly active in training, raising awareness, and promoting these topics.

Paola Galimberti (speaker): Head of Open Science Policy Support at the University of Milan, including the University Press. She is a DOAJ editor for Italy and Germany, and a member of the Operas scientific advisory committee. She has been working on scholarly communication and its costs for many years.

Target audience

This webinar is created for the Italian community and is aimed at researchers, research support staff, technicians, and technologists interested in learning more about Open Science and FAIR principles.

Video