National license agreement sees Elsevier support France’s open science objectives

Couperin, the French academic consortium for higher education and research and Elsevier, a global information analytics business specializing in science and health, has signed a new national license agreement


This four-year agreement (2019-2022) will provide researchers at universities and research institutions across France with equal access to Elsevier’s high-quality content provided through the ScienceDirect platform and enables both subscription and open access publishing options for researchers in France.

In addition, Couperin and Elsevier will work together to contribute to the French government’s open science objectives by supporting the development of Hyper Articles en Ligne (HAL) national repository. HAL is a government-backed open archive where French authors can deposit scholarly documents from all academic fields. HAL provides access to French research outputs which are published Open Access and those which become freely accessible after an embargo period.

“We arrive at all our agreements through a process of examining and understanding customers’ needs and then tailoring our services to meet their objectives; we’re very pleased to have reached this agreement with Couperin,” said Gino Ussi, Executive Vice President at Elsevier. “We look forward to continuing our support for the French research community.

“Elsevier is committed to working with the Couperin member institutions and the French national open repository as we enable researchers to access published research, connect with fellow academics and collaborate to showcase France’s quality research outputs.”

Elsevier and the French research community have a long history of cooperation with roots in French science and medical publisher Masson, founded in 1804. Today, French researchers publish around 30 percent of their output in Elsevier journals and 70 French learned societies maintain long-term partnerships with Elsevier. 

For more information, please visit the Couperin/ French Ministry of Higher Education, Research & Innovation website.