Frequently asked questions Taverne opt out regulation
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 short scientific publications (journal articles, conference proceedings and book chapters in edited volumes) 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. Formerly researchers could tell the library that they wanted to participate in this scheme (opt-in). This option does not extract the total open access potential from UU publications. That is why the scheme will be reversed from 1 January 2024: publications will automatically be made open access, unless you, as a UU author, explicitly object (opt-out). Older publications starting from publication year 2015 and up, which are already in the Utrecht University repository and not yet open access, will also be made open access.
No, because the Utrecht University repository falls under the Dutch copyright act and this means that your journal article can be made open access, regardless of the publisher's policy. For instance, a work can be a closed access publication with a publisher, but become open access in the repository. So far, we do not know of any cases where publishers raised objections. Should there be any objections now, you as the author are legally protected.
The starting date of the opt-out scheme is 1 January 2024. From that date onwards, new work will be directly included in the repository. After the six-month embargo period the PDF will be published open access. Moreover, work will be made open access retroactively, including publication years 2015 and up.
Your work will be made open access via the Utrecht University repository. This will increase the reach of your work. But other than that, you won't notice much of this; it all happens by itself.
No. Publications that are newly uploaded in Pure will be made open access immediately (after the six-month period). But making the works open access is partly done manually. So it wil take up some time before all works from 2015 and up are made open access.
The content of the Utrecht University Repository is 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.
The Dutch Copyright Act gives you, as an author, the right to make your work open access, regardless of the rights of your co-authors.
That depends on your research funder. With this regulation, your publication will be made open access 6 months after the publication date. If your funder asks that your publication be published open access immediately, you do not meet the requirements of your funder with this regulation. Check this with your financier.
UU's open access policy stipulates that works should ideally be published open access immediately.
You can fill in an opt-out form. You can exclude one publication via the opt-out form for a single publication. Or, you can exclude all your work via the opt-out form to exclude all publications. We are curious about the reason for this though, you can enter this in the form.
Please send an email to the University Library: library.publishingsupport@uu.nl