IReL, the Irish Research eLibrary is a nationally funded electronic research library. IReL also seeks to secure open access agreements with publishers.
What is available? IReL delivers quality peer-reviewed online research publications - journals, databases, eBook collections. All of the IReL resources are available through UCC Library's Databases pages.
You can find a full listing of IReL resources here.
For queries about Open Access agreements and IReL resources, please contact:
For more general queries about Open Access:
UCC Library is a member of the IReL consortium. IReL seeks to secure open access agreements with publishers. 'Transformative Agreements' typically allow corresponding authors from eligible institutions to publish their articles open access immediately on publication. These 'Read & Publish' and 'Publish & Read' deals have evolved as a result of changes in the open access landscape, and in particular Plan S. The agreements cover both the subscription to the journal (the 'read' element), and the open access publishing cost (the 'publish' element).
IReL has adopted the LIBER principles in seeking such agreements. Further information about IReL and open access can be found on the IReL website.
See Government press releases published on 24 May 2021 and 26 October 2022.
In order to be eligible, the corresponding author must be a current member of staff, or a current student.
To avail of IReL Open Access agreements it is essential that corresponding authors:
Please Note: For a number of the agreements there is a limited annual quota of article processing charges (APCs) available to the consortium. For those agreements, once the maximum article allowance is reached, authors will not be offered the option to publish open access at no cost, as the eligibility recognition will be switched off for articles accepted for publication after that point. For further details please see the individual agreement pages.
IReL has negotiated Open Access agreements with the following publishers (click on each for full details).
IReL has also produced a master list of journal titles covered by the various agreements (correct as of February 2022 - please check the individual publisher pages for full and up-to-date details).
