The agreement that VSNU has concluded with Springer on behalf of Dutch universities, including the University of Amsterdam, applies to a maximum of 2,080 open access articles per year. The Open Access service of the University Library expects the limit to be reached in October. From then on the corresponding author will receive an invoice himself after choosing to publish open access.

How to avoid a high invoice?

If you can still publish open access free of charge with Springer, this is explicitly stated in the workflow: 'Open access at no costs to you’. After the maximum is reached this message will disappear. From then on, you will have to pay (an APC) for open access yourself, unless you choose for: 'Publish subscription’. More information including screenshots can be found on openaccess.nl.

Note that only when you have an agreement in place with your research department or faculty, the costs can be reimbursed afterwards. There is no central UvA fund for open access that can be used to claim the costs retrospectively.

Making an article freely accessible afterwards

If you have published an article with Springer without open access, you can still make it - in accordance with the UvA Open Access Policy freely accessible by using article 25fa Dutch Copyright Act. The Library can assist you with this. 

And next year?

From 1 January 2022, the free open access publication of articles for UvA researchers at Springer will be available again.

Questions?

Send an e-mail to the Library via openaccess@uva.nl.

For more information on open access, please visit the Library's webpage about open access.