Late last year, the University Council already approved plans for an amended open access procedure, but implementation took some time. From October onwards, the open access policy will apply to both employed UT researchers and ‘guests’, such as emeritus academics and external PhD students. The university’s goal is to achieve 100 per cent open access publishing. In recent years, however, it has consistently fallen a few percentage points short.
All publications publicly available
‘The figure has fluctuated between 2 and 4 per cent in recent years,’ says Nicole Loorbach, open access specialist at the LISA service department. ‘That is because many people are affiliated with the university and make use of our facilities, but were not covered by the procedure.’
That will change from next month, with retrospective effect from 2025. All publications by both UT researchers and guests will then automatically become available through open access within six months of publication. Those who do not wish this can make use of an opt-out arrangement.
‘We are not quite there yet’
Will this close the gap to 100 per cent open access? ‘I do not know whether we will ever reach 100 per cent, but we will come very close,’ says Loorbach. ‘There will always be exceptions. In addition, responsibility for uploading a publication to our repository lies with the researcher. If a publication is not deposited there, the university library cannot make it openly available.’
Open access also comes in different forms, ranging from the UT procedure that makes previously closed publications openly available after six months, to immediate open access publishing under a licence that allows reuse. ‘The latter is the preferred route for UT researchers. Around three quarters of UT articles are available in that way,’ says Loorbach. ‘We have come a long way, but we are not quite there yet. As a university, we continue to believe that publicly funded research should also be publicly accessible.’
End of publication ‘discount’ in sight
For a number of journals, Dutch universities have agreements in place that allow researchers to publish open access free of charge. Earlier this month, UT published a notice on its service portal stating that, for some journals, the maximum number of publications covered under these agreements has been reached, or is close to being reached. As a result, those journals no longer offer free open access publishing under the agreements. According to Loorbach, negotiations are currently ongoing between UKB, the consortium of the thirteen Dutch university libraries and the National Library of the Netherlands (KB), and several major publishers.
