Springer SBM does deal with universities in Netherlands

Springer Science+Business Media and the Association of Dutch Universities (VSNU) have reached a landmark agreement that includes access to more than 2,000 of Springer’s subscription journals as well as a commitment to rapidly moving toward open-access publishing for all publicly financed research results from the Netherlands.

Although negotiations between VSNU and a number of STM publishers have been ongoing, the agreement with Springer is the first to be signed. Springer is no newcomer to open access, having introduced a hybrid open-access model in 2004, and having acquired leading open-access publisher BioMed Central in 2008.

The agreement also follows the objective of Sander Dekker, state secretary in the ministry for education, culture and science of the Netherlands, to have 60 per cent of Dutch scientific output published using open access by 2019 – and rising to 100 per cent in 2025.

'We are very pleased to announce this agreement, and look forward to working with the VSNU in the future. Our commitment to supporting the scientific community, including open access, is well known. We are confident that we will be able to announce further, similar agreements in the near future,' said Derk Haank, CEO of Springer.

Springer says it is currently finalising similar agreements with a selected group of major research funders in Europe, including the Max Planck Digital Library.