Transformative agreements: Six myths, busted: Lessons learned

Abstract

Transformative agreement (TA) is an umbrella term used to describe contracts between institutions and publishers intended to transform the current, primarily subscription-based, journal publishing model to a fully open access (OA) model. The idea originated in a 2015 white paper from the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL), which posited that the current level of investment ($10 billion worldwide) is sufficient to fund the transformation to OA within existing publishing structures: a system in which 60% of the market is controlled by five publishers who maintain excessive profit margins.