Deal reveals what scientists in Germany are paying for open access | Science | AAAS

"Project Deal, a consortium of libraries, universities, and research institutes in Germany, has unveiled an unprecedented deal with a major journal publisher—Wiley—that is drawing close scrutiny from advocates of open access to scientific papers....

Now, the numbers are out. Germany will pay Wiley €2750 for each paper published in one of the publisher’s so-called hybrid journals, which contain both paywalled and free papers. The contract anticipates researchers will publish about 9500 such papers per year, at a cost of €26 million. In addition, researchers will get a 20% discount on the price of publishing in Wiley journals that are already open access.

The deal is an important step toward more open access in scientific publishing, but the per paper fee of €2750 seems high, says Leo Waaijers, an open-access advocate and retired librarian at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Dutch researchers are paying Wiley just €1600 per paper under a similar deal in the Netherlands, he notes. “It’s the same process, the same product, so why the price difference?” he says....

The fact that the details of the German contract have become public is also important, Borrell-Damian says. “Contracts should be public because this is about public money spent,” she says. And if other countries sign similar deals, and the details become public, then “the whole game of price comparison may start,” Waaijers says. And that, open-access advocates say, could produce pressure for even lower publishing fees."