Dutch higher education sector convinced of need for Open Access

"At the Open Access seminar organised by SURF in Amsterdam, Prof. Jos Engelen, chairman of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), announced that his organisation would be providing a special Open Access budget of EUR 2.5m....The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) has reached agreement with Springer that in 2010 all articles by Dutch researchers in Springer journals will be made available Open Access, subject to the author agreeing....Prof. Engelen said...that his organisation was keeping close track of developments and that if insufficient progress had been made in a year’s time, the NWO would see whether it could make Open Access obligatory, as its sister organisations in the United Kingdom and the United States have already done...."