NETHERLANDS

Universities dig in for long fight over open access

Dutch universities have vowed not to soften their groundbreaking demands for publishers to permit all papers published by their academics to be made open access for no extra charge, writes Paul Jump for Times Higher Education.

In January last year, Sander Dekker, the Dutch state secretary for education, culture and science, decreed that 60% of Dutch research articles must be open access by 2019 and 100% by 2024. Dutch university presidents responded by agreeing to make their renewal of subscription deals dependent on publishers taking steps to realise this goal.

Gerard Meijer, president of Radboud University and one of the lead negotiators for the Dutch universities, said that in addition to preserving access to their subscription journals, the universities wanted publishers to permit all future articles whose corresponding author has a Dutch affiliation to be published on an open access basis for no extra charge. He said universities were also unwilling to tolerate any more above-inflation price rises.
Full report on the Times Higher Education site