Cambridge University Press has made an agreement with Dutch institutions which combines access to Cambridge’s subscription content with Open Access (OA) publishing in our hybrid and wholly OA journals. This is a first for Cambridge and a welcome innovation in a fast-moving publishing landscape.

The agreement with the UKB (the consortium of the 13 Dutch university libraries and the National Library of the Netherlands) means Dutch affiliated authors from eligible institutions can access all titles within the 2017 Cambridge Journals Full Collection and publish without limitation in both Cambridge hybrid and wholly Open Access journals.

Senior Sales Executive, Alyssa Meulekamp, was instrumental in putting the deal together. “This is a big step forward for Cambridge. After nearly two years of negotiations, we are pleased to be on the forefront in providing such an innovative deal. It’s been a tall order and not all publishers have managed to meet the terms so we’re particularly proud of what we have been able to achieve.”

Senior Sales Manager, Anna Munthe-Kaas, added: “We are keen to move forward with new models which serve the needs of our institutional customers while simultaneously safeguarding publishing opportunities for our authors and maximizing access opportunities for our readers. This agreement with the Netherlands is an experiment in achieving the right balance between these important stakeholders.”

Cambridge Open Access Publisher, Fiona Hutton said, “Open Access is an accepted business model and it’s in our interests to stay ahead of the game.”

Going Dutch
The Netherlands is one of a number of European countries that aims to make all their publicly-funded research OA in the near future.

In the Dutch case, this ambition started with a mandate in 2013 that stated that 60% of Dutch governmentally-funded publications had to be OA within five years (2019) and 100% within 10 years (2024). During the Dutch Presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2016, OA again became a focus. This resulted in a new target set by the EU Competitiveness Council (a gathering of ministers in science, innovation, trade and industry) to make all publicly funded research papers in the EU OA by 2020.

The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) – the network of Dutch universities funded and accredited by the Dutch government – has led negotiations with publishers on behalf of UKB.

The position of the Dutch government and the VSNU is that is that ‘Green’ OA (i.e. authors self-archiving articles in institutional and other repositories) is an intermediate step. They view Gold OA as the “future proof” way of ensuring access to Dutch publicly funded research.

The VSNU have been using so-called ‘big deal’ negotiations with publishers as a lever for advancing their objective of achieving full OA of Dutch publicly funded research.

Details of the deal
Under the terms of the agreement, eligible Dutch institutions have access to Cambridge’s 2017 Full Collection and future annual collections through to 2019, as does the National Library of the Netherlands.

Articles accepted from the starting date of June 1st, 2017 can be published on an OA basis under the terms of the agreement. The agreement is for three years and access to the Full Journals Collection will be dated retroactively from 1 January 2017.

Cambridge’s Head of Open Access and Data Publishing, Matt Day said, “This deal shows how seriously we take Open Access and how much we want to help countries such as the Netherlands.”

Further information for Dutch authors is available here.