Recent scientific articles from the Rectores Magnifici of Dutch universities will soon be worldwide available for free. By doing so, the rectors aim to set a good example for all researchers in the Netherlands. The articles will be shared via the university repositories. Recent publications of Frank Baaijens, rector of this university, are already available.

The initiative is in line with the goal in the Netherlands to be 100% open access by 2020 and is a part of the so-called Taverne pilot : open-access sharing of articles is enabled by changes made to Dutch copyright law in 2015, known as article 25fa or the Taverne amendment.

A good example results in good practices

Han van Krieken, Rector Magnificus of Radboud University: “Publicly funded scientific work should be freely accessible to the public, lecturers, and academics. Recently, Dutch universities have been able to make agreements with many publishers regarding publishing in open-access. Unfortunately, this has not yet been achieved with every publisher. For this reason, it is good that the law now — albeit subject to conditions — makes it possible to share in open access. The rectors are taking the lead and we hope that many researchers will follow suit.”

Conditions

Under certain conditions, researchers can share their publications in open access after six months, without having to make a specific agreement with the publisher. The scientific research on which the work is based must be financed wholly or partly by Dutch public funds and the author or co-author must be employed by a Dutch institution. In addition, the publication should qualify as a short academic work, the length of a scientific article or chapter in an edited collection.