Modest Open Access Christmas Deal in The Netherlands - LERU : League of European Research Universities

"The League of European Research Universities (LERU) has taken note of the agreement in principle which has been reached between the Dutch universities (VSNU) and Elsevier on open accessand subscriptions. It welcomes this agreement as a first modest step in the direction of introducing new business models for scholarly publishing. According to the joint press release, the agreement gives academics at Dutch universities subscription access to Elsevier journals and allows them to publish Open Access in a selection of these journals. The Dutch universities aim to make 30% of their researchers’ publications Open Access by 2018 and this agreement should make it possible to get there. The agreement is also said to be in line with the objective of Sander Dekker, State Secretary at the Ministry for Education, Culture and Science of the Netherlands, to transition Dutch scientific output towards an Open Access publishing model. The way in which this agreement has been reached illustrates clearly the necessity of the Open Access campaign LERU launched several weeks ago: 'Christmas is over' ..."