Read and Publish: Sage
BCU Library has a Read & Publish deal with Sage until 31st December 2025.
If you have questions about what happens after this date, please see the Approaching the End of the Deal section, or the Next Gen OA Updates page.
This deal covers the fees for the following:
- Read access to all Sage journals 1999-present (including those published on behalf of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers)
- Publishing articles Gold Open Access in Sage Choice (hybrid) journals.
Criteria and Restrictions
Author eligibility
- You must be the corresponding author
- You must declare your affiliation with BCU
- This deal is open to both staff and students
Article eligibility
Eligible article types include:
-
Original research papers
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Review papers
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Case reports
The following article types are not covered:
-
Book reviews
Journal eligibility
Eligible journals are:
- Hybrid journals.
Sage calls these 'Sage Choice'. These are journals that charge a subscription fee, but publish some Open Access articles.
The following journals are not covered:
- Fully Open Access journals.
(However, you will get a 20% discount if you decide to self-fund publishing in one of these journals.) - 9 subscription-only journals that do not accept Open Access articles at all.
How to Access
- You will need to identify yourself as affiliated with BCU when you first submit your article
- It is easiest for the Library to confirm your affiliation if you use your BCU email address
- When your article is accepted, Sage will contact you to ask if you want to publish Open Access
- You will need to complete the Licensing and Payment Instructions (Sage) up to step 3
- Your article will then come through to the library's Open Access dashboard for approval
More Information
Sage has several resources to help you navigate this agreement:
- Licensing and Payment Instructions for authors publishing via Sage Choice. Because BCU has a payment agreement with Sage, you should only need to complete steps 1-3.
- Webpage explaining the Sage Jisc Read & Publish agreement
- Sage Choice FAQ page
Approaching the End of the Deal
This deal ends on 31st December 2025:
- Jisc (representing the UK higher education sector) are currently negotiating with Sage for a deal covering 2026 onwards.
- As of August 2025, Sage have made an offer and asked the sector to vote on whether to accept, accept with conditions, or reject it.
- This is a national negotiation and the outcome depends on how the whole sector votes, not just BCU.
What this means for you right now:
- Articles only come to the Library dashboard for funding approval after they have been accepted by the journal editors. We recommend submitting your articles early enough for an acceptance date before 31st December.
- The library may not be able to approve funding for articles accepted after this date, depending on how the sector votes.
- If your article is accepted in a hybrid journal after this date, it can still be published for free behind a paywall.
- If your article is accepted in a fully-OA journal after this date, you will no longer be eligible for the 20% discount on the APC.
Please be aware of this upcoming deadline and check review timeframes when using this deal in 2025. We will keep the Next Gen OA page updated with the latest developments.