1. Background
The ‘National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data’ (Provisional translation) was created by the Integrated Innovation Strategy Promotion Council on February 16, 2024. In it, the government states that in order to enable everyone to access to scholarly publications and scientific data freely, it promotes supporting the establishment of a collective bargaining system of universities to negotiate with global academic publishers (‘platformers’) and aims to optimize the financial burden on the research community through these negotiation efforts. Since strong negotiating power is necessary to achieve this, the Cabinet Office organized a meeting, whose members were vice presidents and directors of the universities consisting of RU11 (Research University 11), a consortium of Japan’s leading research universities. At the meeting, in preparation for the start of discussions with academic publishers regarding contract terms, the Cabinet Office requested universities to cooperate with one another and team up to build a collective bargaining system, which led to the establishment of OASE. The team consisted of a number of experts on issues related to academic journals. Members worked together in their respective roles and collaborated with JUSTICE, which has proven expertise and experience in negotiation, to promote open access through consultation with global academic publishers.
Subsequently, further discussions were held at a meeting organized by the Cabinet Office, with universities and academic research institutions interested in Transformative Agreements for scholarly journals participating as members. It was decided that the team would transition to OASE+ in December 2025. OASE+ inherits the activities of OASE and operates as a joint initiative between JUSTICE and OASE.
Related policies in Japan
- G7 Science and Technology Ministers’ Communique (May 12-14, 2023)
- G7 Hiroshima Leaders’ Communiqué(May 20, 2023)
- Summary of issues related to open access (May 25, 2023)
- Integrated Innovation Strategy 2023(June 9, 2023)
- Basic Policy on Economic and Fiscal Management and Reform 2023(June 16, 2023)
- Grand Design and Action Plan for a New Form of Capitalism 2023 Revised Version(June 16, 2023)
- Basic ideas for Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications (October 30, 2023)
- National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data(Provisional translation)(February 16, 2024)
- Measures for the Implementation of “National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data”(Provisional translation) (February 21, 2024)
- Briefing on the ‘Basic Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data’ (April 24-25, 2024)
- Integrated Innovation Strategy 2024(June 4, 2024)
- Grand Design and Action Plan for a New Form of Capitalism 2024 Revised Version (June 21, 2024)
- Specific policies for implementing the ‘Basic Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data’ Proposed Amendment (July 30, 2024)
- Briefing on the Specific policies for implementing the ‘Basic Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data’ (August 27-28, 2024)
- Measures for the Implementation of “National Policy on Promoting Open Access to Publicly Funded Scholarly Publications and Scientific Data”(Provisional translation) (October 8, 2024)
2. Activities
OASE+ has been in discussions with publishers regarding agreements for 2027.
In general, the progress of discussions with each publisher will be shared only with participating institutions, however, updates may be shared on this website.
３．Our Team
| chair | Yasuteru Shigeta | Director, Center for Computational Sciences, University of Tsukuba |
| Kouta Kanno | Associate professor, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Law, Economics and the Humanities, Kagoshima University | |
| Riko Modeki | Specially Appointed Expert (Research DX) Office of Institute Strategy, Institute of Science Tokyo | |
| Yoshiro Hirata | Manager, Information Processing and Management Division, The University of Tokyo Library | |
| Nobuyuki Taguchi | Assistant Manager, Saitama Medical University Library | |
| Kayo Sakemi | Administrative Director, Media Center for Science and Technology, Keio University | |
| Yasuhiko Hamao | Deputy Director, University Library Affairs, ICT & Academic Media Bureau, Kansai University |
（As of January 2026）