Open Access: Springer Signs Licensing Agreement with Dutch Universities

From the Association of Dutch Universities (VSNU):

The Springer publishing group and the Dutch universities have reached a negotiation agreement on the transition to open access.
Both parties see open access publishing as the road to the future. ‘We’re confident that this agreement with Springer marks a key step in the right direction’, said Koen Becking, president of Tilburg University and chief negotiator for the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU). ‘It means scientists in the Netherlands will be able to publish in open access format in existing Springer journals, while retaining reading privileges to these journals as well.’
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Agreements on subscription fees are made for all the Dutch universities with the individual scientific journal publishers, as part of the so-called ‘Big Deal’ negotiations. The universities are only prepared to renew the agreements on subscriptions if the publishers take steps towards open access. Several publishers are hesitant to take these steps, given the drastic changes in their revenue model this transition would cause. Yet the negotiations with Springer prove that these steps can be taken.
According to targets set by State Secretary Dekker for Education, Culture and Science, five and ten years from now 60% and 100% of all Dutch academic publications, respectively, should be open access publications. A great deal of academic research is funded by public means. The Dutch universities aim to prevent a situation in which users ultimately have to pay twice for consulting open access publications.

Read the Complete Announcement
From Spriger’s Announcement:

Springer Science+Business Media and the Association of Dutch Universities (VSNU) have reached a landmark agreement which includes access to more than 2,000 of Springer’s subscription journals as well as a commitment to rapidly moving toward open access publishing for all publicly financed research results from the Netherlands.
Although negotiations between VSNU and a number of STM publishers have been ongoing, the agreement with Springer is the first to be signed.

Read the Complete Announcement

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Open Access, Patrons and Users, Publishing