IOP Publishing strikes Netherlands OA deal

Science publisher IOP Publishing (IOPP) has struck a series of "read and publish" agreements with Dutch universities.

The agreements – with the University of Amsterdam, Delft University of Technology, the University of Groningen and the University of Twente – enable authors from the institutions to publish Open Access in 42 of IOP Publishing’s journals without Article Processing Charges, under a CC-BY licence.

A number of further contracts will be announced soon.

Steven Hall, managing director at IOPP, said the publisher had already implemented similar licences in Austria, Norway and Sweden, where close to 100% of eligible articles were now being published on an Open Access basis. "With more agreements such as this in the pipeline, we’re increasing the demand for Open Access publishing by removing any constraints and making the process as simple as possible."

The announcement is the latest in a raft of publisher agreements, with Cambridge University Press earlier this month announcing a three-year transformative agreement with the Spanish National Research Council, enabling authors from its 120 affiliated institutions to publish publicly financed research articles in CUP’s hybrid and fully OA journals, while members also have access to the press’ full collection of over 400 journals.

Also this month, Springer Nature has confirmed that it has finalised its deal for the world’s largest transformative Open Access (OA) agreement to date, with the 700-plus German academic and research institutions which are part of Projekt DEAL. The agreement was first announced in August last year. Springer Nature described the agreement as "a giant step forward in the OA transition, enabling greater visibility, impact, efficiency, transparency and sustainability in the dissemination of the fruits of German research, for the benefit of researchers everywhere".