Since 2015, an amendment to Dutch Copyright Act, the Taverne Amendment, allows authors of scientific publications to make their work available free of charge regardless of any publishers' policies.
| Taverne amendement “The maker of a short scientific work for which the research has been financed in whole or in part by Dutch public funds is entitled to make that work available to the public free of charge following a reasonable period after its first publication, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication.” |
The Dutch University libraries and the VSNU have more strictly defined the general conditions used in the amendment and tested those in a pilot project by the Dutch university libraries. Publishers have not challenged this interpretation of the amendment so far. Therefore, the following implementation of the Taverne amendment is now used:
- The work will be shared in its definitive, published version.
- A 'reasonable period' is considered to be six months after the work was first made available online.
- The amendment applies to articles, conference papers and chapters in edited collections.
The principles apply to all academic researchers, corresponding authors and co-authors, and is irrespective of how copyright may have been arranged and/or transferred.
The Taverne amendment gives the right to share a publication exclusively to the author(s). TU/e authors can ask enable the library to exercise this right for them and to make their publication(s) public in the institutional repository by filling in this form. For more information, please contact the Open Access helpdesk.