Amendment Taverne

Open access publishing is a spearhead of Utrecht University. Research should be available to other researchers as widely as possible, but also available to society. After all, a lot of research is funded by public means.

There are several options to publish open access directly, but it may also happen that this cannot be done at first. For instance, because there is not enough budget to cover the APCs, or because the publication is a chapter in an edited volume. The Taverne amendment to the Dutch copyright law could be used to make these publications freely available as well.

Taverne Amendment

Included in the Dutch copyright act, we find Article 25fa, also known as the Taverne Amendment, named after former Member of Parliament Joost Taverne. Under this article,  researchers can make the published version of their scientific publications open access available after a reasonable period of time following the first publication. Dutch universities have agreed that a six-month period is reasonable. This also applies if the publisher stipulates a longer embargo period.

The library makes short scientific works (journal articles, conference proceedings, publications in journals for professionals and book chapters from edited volumes) by Utrecht University researchers and that have been published closed access automatically open access based on the Taverne Amendment.

Publications registered in Pure will be made open access in the Utrecht University Repository six months after the first publication. This is part of Utrecht University’s open access policy. You can view the regulation here.

Findability

The publications will be included in the Utrecht University Repository. Please keep in mind that not all publications can be viewed right away from 2015 onwards because making the works open access is partly done manually. An embargo may also be placed if the six-month period after the first publication has not passed yet.

The contents of the repository are searchable via the Netherlands Research Portal, part of the European OpenAire. All publications in the Utrecht University Repository can also be found via WorldCat, Google Scholar and BASE.

Questions coming from the publisher

It may occur that publishers have questions about your use of the amendment. The library is here to help and will take over all communication, if necessary.

Opt-out

You have the option to exclude certain publications from this regulation (opt-out). Please fill in the opt-out form for a single publication. In addition, you can exclude all your work via the opt-out form to exclude all publications.

Publications of UMC Utrecht researchers are not automatically made open access. However, they can register themselves for the regulation. You will sign a license agreement for this. By entering into the license agreement, you give Utrecht University Library permission to make all publications you have registered in Pure open access available, if they are not already.