The agreement that VSNU has concluded with Springer on behalf of Dutch universities, including the University of Amsterdam, applies to a maximum of 2,067 open access articles per year. From then on, you as the corresponding author will receive an invoice 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.

‘Yes: I will publish my article with open access and my institution covers the charge’.

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:

‘No, I want to publish my article traditionally without open access’.

Please note that only when arrangements have been made in advance with a department or faculty to pay for the open access article can the costs be reimbursed retrospectively. There is no central fund at the university for open access that can be claimed retrospectively.

Making an article freely accessible afterwards

If you have published an article to Springer in the traditional way, without open access, you can still make it freely accessible afterwards. There are several ways to do this. Read for more information (sections 5 and 6) on the Library's Open acess page.

And next year?

Depending on the outcome of the new round of negotiations, Dutch corresponding authors will probably be able to use free open access at Springer again from 1 January 2024.

More information and contact

Email the Library at openaccess@uva.nl.