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 Amendement
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.
Utrecht University Library helps UU and UMC Utrecht researchers to make use of the amendment.
How does it work?
First of all it is important to meet the conditions:
- The publication is financed in whole or in part with Dutch public funds.
- The creator(s) is / are employed by Utrecht University or UMC Utrecht; the creators can be both authors and co-authors.
- It is a 'short work of science'; this is the length of a scientific article or a book chapter in an edited collection.
Next you sign up to the scheme via the library. You sign a licence agreement. By entering into the agreement you give the library permission to make all publications that you have registered in Pure open access available, insofar as they are not already. You enter into the agreement as employee of Utrecht University or UMC Utrecht. This means that there are two different agreements, one for UU staff and one for UMC Utrecht staff.
Are you affiliated with UMC Utrecht? Please take note that a technical adjustment will be carried out, resulting in Pure UMC publications being published via the Utrecht University Repository. This link is not ready yet, but you can already sign the license agreement.
The publications will be included in the Utrecht University Repository. Please keep in mind that the publications cannot be viewed right away because the library has to perform a number of administrative tasks after the license agreement has been signed. An embargo may also be placed if the six-month period after the first publication has not passed yet.
The publications can be found in Google Scholar and WorldCat. Of course you can share a link to the publication yourself.
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.