Transformative agreements have emerged as a highly effective tool in the transition to open access publishing. These agreements have enabled institutions and nations to shift their research outputs toward open access. They have also expanded the open access footprints of publishers. Librarians and publishers have relatively quickly established contractual norms and practices that bundle reading and publishing and streamline workflows for authors to be authorized for publishing coverage. Likewise, pure publish agreements have established similar workflows for open access publishing under institutional contracts and begun shifting gold journals from one-off payments for each article. As transformative agreements mature, they offer an ideal platform for addressing broader issues beyond access — most importantly, research integrity. 

This essay argues that next-generation transformative agreements should integrate research integrity considerations, formalizing partnerships to uphold the quality and ethical standards of scholarly outputs.

Transformative agreements can be more than just tools to enable open access publishing and access to paywalled context. They can also serve as mechanisms for institutional accountability in upholding ethical research standards. By including provisions related to research integrity — such as designated contacts for misconduct investigations, mutual commitments to ethical guidelines, and penalties for non-compliance — these agreements can become instruments for establishing publisher-institutional partnerships based on shared ethical commitments and fostering a more responsible and resilient scholarly publishing environment. This collaborative approach would ensure that both publishers and institutions play an active role in safeguarding research integrity.

Publishers Need Institutions as Investigatory Partners

Publishers are facing significant challenges related to research integrity and maintaining the quality of the scholarly record. In recent years, the rise in incidents of paper mill submissions, data falsification, and other forms of misconduct has increased pressure on publishers to identify and reject problematic manuscripts. The advanced screening tools that publishers have implemented, such as plagiarism detection software, author verification checks, and artificial intelligence-driven fraud detection, are valuable but not foolproof. Integrity issues may not be detected until post-publication, perhaps triggered by third-party complaints or after unethical patterns emerge over time. 

To address these challenges, publishers increasingly need universities and research institutes as partners in investigating and addressing integrity issues. When ethical concerns arise, allegations of data manipulation, plagiarism, or authorship disputes often require deeper scrutiny than publishers alone can provide. As the home institutions of the authors in question, universities and research institutes have access to critical resources, such as raw data, funding disclosures, and institutional policies, all of which are essential for thorough investigations. When publishers flag potential misconduct, they are reliant upon institutions to investigate and resolve the issue in a timely and comprehensive manner. Without institutional cooperation, investigations are delayed, or completely stalled, leaving ethical concerns unresolved and unaddressed.

A significant challenge for publishers in this process is establishing reliable communication channels with institutions and a collaborative investigatory relationship. Not all institutions have a dedicated research integrity office, and even those that do may not be responsive to publishers’ inquiries. As a result, publishers sometimes struggle to find the appropriate contact point to initiate an investigation or receive updates. Transformative agreements offer a mechanism for addressing these challenges. 

Contractual Commitment to Research Integrity

Because transformative agreements establish contractual terms for reading paywalled content, the reading side of these agreements is relatively mature. License agreements for digital content have been iterated over decades to address a wide range of considerations, including identifying entitled reader groups, establishing authentication and authorization protocols, and detailing responsibilities in case of piracy or privacy breaches. In contrast, the publishing side of transformative agreements is relatively young and currently focuses, understandably, on the central concerns for entitling authors to publishing coverage and related payment terms and workflows. 

As transformative agreements mature, they can be strategically leveraged to address additional publishing-related responsibilities, including safeguarding research integrity. Specifically, publishers could incorporate clauses that require the institution to identify a designated contact to handle research integrity investigations, just as they would for access-related matters like login issues or security breaches. Likewise, institutions may wish to negotiate for parallel requirements from publishers.

Publishers and academic institutions already collaborate on technical matters related to access; extending this collaboration to include research ethics is a natural next step. For example, in cases of suspected misconduct or ethical concerns related to publications, publishers could rely on designated university personnel to respond and engage with these issues directly. Additional contractual clauses could include agreed-upon investigatory procedures, such as a mutual commitment to follow COPE’s guideline on “Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity and publication misconduct cases,” and penalties for failure to respond.

Institutionalizing research integrity commitments in a transformative agreement would not only benefit the publisher by providing clear points of contact and faster resolutions but would also strengthen an institution’s own commitment to fostering a culture of ethical research. Institutions would be more likely to invest in training and resources to address research integrity concerns proactively if they were contractually obligated to do so through their publishing agreements.

A Collaborative Approach to Safeguarding Research Integrity

Such provisions would also foster a closer working relationship between publishers and institutions. When a concern arises regarding the integrity of a particular publication, a publisher can then quickly turn to the institution’s designated research integrity team for assistance with resolution. This partnership would help streamline responses and ensure that ethical concerns are addressed efficiently and consistently and would ensure that institutions are active participants in maintaining the ethical standards of the research they produce and rely on publishers to disseminate. 

If an institution is unwilling to identify a research integrity officer or commit to timely investigation, a publisher may wish to take this into consideration as it decides whether to strike a transformative agreement and, with or without a transformative agreement, as it reviews manuscripts from researchers affiliated with that institution. 

Conclusion

As transformative agreements evolve, they present a strategic opportunity to address the growing concerns surrounding research misconduct. By clearly defining roles and responsibilities for publishers and institutions, these agreements can ensure that ethical issues are handled swiftly and effectively. In a research landscape increasingly plagued by challenges such as data falsification, plagiarism, and fraudulent publications, transformative agreements can serve not only as enablers of open access but also as cornerstones of a more ethical scholarly ecosystem.