KB has a standing mandate to coordinate, monitor, and promote collaboration in the work to advance open access to scholarly publications. The goal is for scholarly publications that are the result of research financed with public funds to be published with immediate open access.

During the transition to an open science system, KB is monitoring and reporting on the expenditures, their size, how they are distributed across categories, and allocated among institutions. The annual report, covering the 2025 expenditures for scholarly publishing, has now been submitted to the government.

The costs for Swedish higher education institutions

Over the past six years, total expenditures have increased 16 per cent – from SEK 709 million in 2020 to SEK 819 million in 2025. During the same period, the number of open access articles published via Bibsam’s agreements increased by nearly 60 per cent, from around 11,000 to approximately 18,000.

Compared to 2024, the total expenditure increased by 13 million SEK in 2025. According to the Swedish Higher Education Authority (Universitetskanslersämbetet, UKÄ), the revenue for research and doctoral education amounted to SEK 56.8 billion in 2025, which means that expenditures on scholarly publishing correspond to approximately 1.4 percent, the same proportion as in the preceding six years.

Transformative read-and-publish agreements

Expenditures for transformative read-and-publish agreements – through which the majority of open access articles are published – account for 61 per cent of total expenditures. These agreements remain the largest single expense for institutions.

The goal of transformative agreements is to redirect payment flows from subscription-based to open access publishing. However, the transition is proceeding slowly – so slowly that there is a risk of these agreements becoming a permanent business model rather than a transitional phase. To address this risk and further drive the transition to open access, the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (Sveriges universitets- och högskoleförbund, SUHF) recommends actively supporting a shift toward a publishing landscape in which subscription-based and hybrid publishing agreements are gradually phased out.