FAQ Background info

The TU/e Open Access Regulation states that TU/e automatically applies the use of the Taverne Amendment to the Dutch Copyright Act to eligible publications. By doing so, TU/e facilitates its researchers to provide open access to their publications. 

The Taverne Amendment to the Dutch Copyright Act grants authors of short scientific publications the right to make their work available free of charge following a reasonable period after first publication, regardless of the terms and conditions imposed by the publisher. Prerequisite is that the publication describes research that was at least partially funded by the Dutch public funds.   

The Dutch university libraries and the UNL have established concrete guidelines to implement Taverne:  

• The work will be shared in its definitive, published version.   

• A 'reasonable period' is defined as six months after the work was first made available online.   

• The amendment applies to articles, conference papers and chapters in edited collections describing research performed at Dutch Universities.  

Because Dutch universities are partly funded by public money, all research carried out at Dutch universities is considered to be at least partly funded by Dutch public money.  

As a researcher, you are entitled to invoke this amendment to Dutch Copyright law to make your short scientific publications freely available after six months. The TU/e wants to facilitate TU/e authors to exercise this right. Until 1 June 2023, you could only do so by signing a licence. Now, thanks to the Open Access Regulation, we can make your eligible publications openly available after six months with your tacit approval, so you don’t need to invest time or effort yourself. If you don’t want to use this right, you can opt out. (See ‘Practical How can I opt out?’ below).

By making your publications openly available in Pure, they will be available to everyone. Pure is harvested by widely used search engines, so your open publications in our repository will be easily findable. This increases the visibility of your research. It may also be an easy way to meet your funder’s requirements. Finally, you will contribute to the Dutch universities’ joint objective to publish all short academic works in open access. If you don’t want to use this right, you can opt out. (See ‘Practical How can I opt out?’) 

The publishers that have a contract with the Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) were informed in a letter in 2019. The Dutch Media for Subject-Specific Information and Science sector association (Media voor Vak en Wetenschap, MVW) has also been informed. 

We hope and expect that publishers will see this as an opportunity to accelerate the transition towards 100% open access. However, if necessary, TU/e will provide all necessary support and take on any legal or financial burdens that results from this. There have not been any legal cases since the Dutch universities started applying the Taverne amendment to publications in 2019. 

No, Dutch law – and thus the Taverne amendment - overrules any requirements a publisher may have, contractual or otherwise.  

It depends. If your funder requires immediate open access and/or a licence for re-use, then it does not meet your funder’s requirements. If your funder allows publications to be open after six months without a licence for re-use, then this procedure does meet your funder’s requirements. (See ‘What if… I have to abide by Plan S’)