Cancellation of Elsevier journals subscription

Yesterday, the Council of Australasian University Librarians (CAUL) announced it is pausing negotiations with Elsevier, for a read and publish agreement to its academic journals. This decision means that we, along with other Australian and New Zealand Universities, will be cancelling our subscription to Elsevier journals from 1 January 2026.

Macquarie University has been part of sector wide negotiations to establish new transformative agreements with major academic journal publishers, addressing long-standing issues of unsustainable costs and poor availability of open access materials.

More information will be shared in the coming weeks, but in summary, from 1 January 2026:

• there will be no access to new articles published in Elsevier journals
• some older articles, published prior to this date, will remain available where our agreements allow
• the publishing of open access articles in Elsevier journals will not be covered by a University agreement for Macquarie researchers
• there will be no impact to other subscribed Elsevier research tools such as Scopus or Pure.

Waranara Library staff have been working to minimise any potential disruption to students and academic staff. We will provide more information on how to continue to access and publish in high quality journal literature through updates to our website and direct communications with academic staff.

New landmark deal with Taylor & Francis

One positive outcome of the negotiations is a landmark new deal with Taylor & Francis which will significantly improve access to comprehensive open access publishing for our researchers.

This deal with one of the world’s largest academic publishers will ensure ongoing access to thousands of high-quality journals for Macquarie University staff and students. Macquarie researchers will also be able to publish open access in eligible journals from Taylor & Francis without direct payment of article processing charges (APCs) in a simpler, more streamlined process.

You can read more about these publisher negotiations in the joint press release from CAUL, Universities Australia and Universities New Zealand.