Springer OA Agreement: maximum cap reached

The Springer Transformative Agreement with the Dutch university libraries has reached, on the 9th of November, its article maximum quota allocation for the current year of 2023. If your manuscript is accepted between now and January 1, 2024, the Open Access (OA) publishing costs will no longer be covered by the agreement. An option to still publish OA will be available at the publisher, however, it must be stressed that the Article Processing Charges (APC) are of the author’s responsibility, if the author still wishes to pursue this option. 

To avoid APC costs, do not select "Publish open access" for articles accepted after the quota is reached. Instead, opt for 'Publish subscription' and consider the green route for OA, involving self-archiving via the Tilburg University Research Portal, following Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, also known as the Taverne Amendment.

The Taverne Amendment allows the sharing of the publisher's version of your short publication through the Tilburg University Research Portal, after a 'reasonable period' of 6 months. Dutch law grants you the right to share your work, irrespective of contractual agreements with publishers. While the nationwide 2019 initiative testing of this guideline revealed no legal objections from publishers, Tilburg University guarantees comprehensive legal support in the case of objections. Any author or co-author who has an employment contract with Tilburg University can make use of this right. Although no co-author permission is required under Dutch law to make use of your right to share your work freely under the Taverne Amendment, it is of course polite to do so. 

If you have any questions or need further information on publisher’s agreements and open access publishing strategies, please visit the Open Access Information Point, or reach out to openaccess@tilburguniversity.edu. If you need more information on copyright, we invite you to visit the Copyright Information Point, or contact Eric van den Akker (H.J.M.vdnAkker@tilburguniversity.edu); copyright information specialist and law librarian.