Transformative agreements, publication venues and Open Access policies at the University of Milan

Starting from July 2020 at the University of Milan, one of the largest and most important Italian universities, the first transformative agreements with some major international scientific publishers have come into effect. These agreements allow corresponding authors to publish in open access without directly bearing the publication costs. From the perspective of corresponding authors, these agreements could increase the dissemination of their scientific output and, thereby, the impact on the scientific community. However, transformative agreements are part of a rapidly changing publishing market that already includes open access articles in both so-called ‘Diamond’ and ‘Gold’ journals. The aim of our study is to understand to what extent the positioning of journals in impact rankings, the disciplinary field of the article, together with the career stage of the corresponding author, influence the choice to publish in a journal covered by transformative agreements rather than in other open access or hybrid journals. The results of our investigation draw attention to the importance of rules in Italy governing scientific careers in different disciplinary fields and potential unforeseen effects of policies favouring open access.