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The ethical risks of open-access agreements being used for authorship leverage

Spitale G., Germani F., Biller-Andorno N. (2026) Nature 651(8105):550 10.1038/d41586-026-00776-6

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Transformative agreements, the deals that fund open-access publishing, are sold as a fairness tool; in this Nature correspondence we warn they can turn access to publishing into a bargaining chip for authorship. Whoever holds the budget can ask for a name on the paper, and current authorship rules were not written to catch it.

Abstract

Transformative agreements — contracts between institutions and publishers that help to fund open-access (OA) systems — are widely presented as tools to advance equity in scientific publishing. But they can introduce an integrity risk: access to publishing could be used as academic leverage.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00776-6

Cite

Spitale, G., Germani, F., & Biller-Andorno, N. (2026). The ethical risks of open-access agreements being used for authorship leverage. Nature, 651(8105), 550. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00776-6
@article{spitale2026ethical,
  author  = {Spitale, G. and Germani, F. and Biller-Andorno, N.},
  title   = {{The ethical risks of open-access agreements being used for authorship leverage}},
  journal = {Nature},
  year    = {2026},
  volume  = {651},
  number  = {8105},
  pages   = {550},
  doi     = {10.1038/d41586-026-00776-6}
}

Published in

Nature

Year

2026

DOI

10.1038/d41586-026-00776-6

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