Guest: Jeff Mackie-Mason, University Librarian and Chief Digital Scholarship Officer at UC Berkeley, co-chair of the UC negotiation team.
Negotiations on transformative agreements began in 2018 and are a major priority for the University of California. They spent two years drawing up a strategic plan and building a coalition of support from the libraries, faculty, and upper administration. The university president and all chancellors are also in support, and the University Senate is an active participant.
There was a focus on cultivating large support from faculty: UC faculty senate groups are very strong; shared governance is highly respected. Many avenues of communication were used: town halls, meetings with faculty, webpages with an aim for transparency.
See also: Negotiating with scholarly journal publishers: A toolkit from the University of California and Elsevier journal negotiations