The N8 Research Partnership launched its Rights Retention statement in January 2023. Now nearly three years later and with the sector in the midst of a financial crisis, the proportion of open access publications is not necessarily moving in the right direction, while universities face ever increasing and unsustainable publishing costs.

Some universities, including in the N8, have already cancelled their 'big deals' meaning they have both reduced access to subscription content and to open access publishing through those deals.

On behalf of the sector as a whole, Jisc is currently negotiating with the 'Big Five' commercial publishers (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, Sage) and while 'no deal' is probably unlikely at a sector level, some universities may not be able to afford ongoing subscriptions to read and publish.

In the face of deal cancellations, rights retention provides a valuable tool for universities to make their research outputs immediately open access through the green route, from a repository like White Rose Research Online.

For this online event we are very pleased to welcome Professor Stephen Eglen, a computational neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge and high profile advocate for open access and rights retention. In addition to his academic publications, Professor Eglen has published Rights Retention Strategy: a Primer from UKRN.

We will also hear from Thom Blake, Open Research Manager at the University of York, one of the N8 universities that has already implemented rights retention and are managing these challenges.

The event will be introduced and chaired by Jane Saunders, Associate Director: Content and Discovery at University of Leeds Libraries.