Caps expected to be reached for open-access discount agreements

Thanks to agreements between the Universities of The Netherlands (UNL) and publishers, submitting UT authors can publish open access (OA) at a 100% discount* in more than 10,000 high-quality journals. But many of these agreements have a so-called cap; a maximum number of articles that can be published OA at the discount each year. Once a cap is reached, the discount is no longer given.

Based on current publication trends, we expect the following caps to be reached in the coming months:

1. Oxford University Press (hybrid journals): Second week of September
2. Springer Nature: Last week of September
3. Emerald: Last week of September
4. Oxford University Press (open-access journals): First week of November
5. Taylor & Francis: Second week of November

If your article is accepted for publication after the cap is reached, then you’ll receive an invoice for OA publishing.

Once a cap is reached, your options depend on whether the journal is hybrid or fully open:

Hybrid journal
You can either publish OA or behind a paywall in a hybrid journal. When you publish OA after the cap is reached, your research group will have to pay the invoice. When you publish behind a paywall in a hybrid journal, you won’t receive an invoice. This is only an option when your research funder doesn’t require you to publish OA. When you publish behind a paywall, make sure to upload the published version of your article to Pure, so the University Library can make your originally closed publication openly available in UT Research Information after six months, thanks to the OA Procedural Regulations.

Open-access journal
You automatically publish OA in an OA journal. When you publish in an OA journal after the cap is reached, you will receive an invoice. You may be able to get funding from your funder (e.g., NWO, EU) or from your faculty in the case of BMS. Otherwise, your research group will have to pay the invoice.

For future reference
If your research funder requires you to publish OA (e.g., funders that endorse Plan S), then always use the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS), even if you plan to publish in a journal with a discount agreement. If the agreement is not renewed, or the cap is reached, the RRS lets you comply with your funder’s requirements. Use the RRS when you first submit your article. That way, you can meet your funder’s requirements by making the accepted version of your article openly available in UT Research Information with a CC-BY licence, without an embargo period, even if the published version ends up behind a paywall.

Notify-me service
You can sign up for a notify-me service that will send you a maximum of two emails about the expected and final date a cap will be reached. 

If you’re not sure whether your article will get accepted in time to get the discount, please contact the information specialist of your faculty so you can look at your options together.

*    The publisher may still charge other costs, for instance page charges. You can find these journals and the requirements for the discount in the UT Journal Browser. Our walkthrough shows you how to use the UT Journal Browser to get the most out of it.