After reaching the quota, you can not apply for the 100% discount on the costs for Open Access publishing with these two publishers until the end of the year. Read more about these quotas and your alternatives.

In brief[su_spacer]

• Open Access means free access and (re)use of research output for the public. The authors usually cover publishing costs via an article processing charge (APC). APCs are considered part of the research costs.[su_spacer]
• The University Library supports Open Access publishing in many ways. One is to enter into agreements with publishers and negotiate discounts on the APC, often up to 100%. These agreements allow researchers from UM and MUMC+ to publish Open Access for free.[su_spacer]
• Some agreements have a limit on the number of free articles per year. At this moment, we have almost reached the yearly quotas for the Springer Nature and the Emerald journals. After that, Open Access publishing will continue to be possible, but the discounts will no longer apply.

What happened

The VSNU consortium responsible for the agreements with Springer Nature and Emerald recently informed us that we, together with the other Dutch universities, will reach the 2021 quota for free open access publishing in October.

Corresponding authors from Maastricht University and MUMC+ can no longer apply for a 100% discount from that moment until the end of 2021 if they publish their articles Open Access in the journals of these publishers.

For Emerald, there is still a 10% discount on the Article Processing Charges (APC). This discount applies to both Emerald’s hybrid journals and their full Open Access journals. Springer Nature no longer offers discounts after reaching the quota until the end of 2021.

How does this affect you?

Suppose you submitted your manuscript to one of these publishers, and they accept your article for publishing after reaching the quota. In that case, it will be no longer possible to apply for the 100% discount for Open Access until the end of the year. The publishers will make this clear during the publishing process.

Of course, you can publish Open Access if you handle the APC yourself within the research project.

If there are no external requirements for Open Access and you have no research budget, you can also publish your article with a subscription license for free. And share your publication with the public via the UM repository (Pure) as Green Open Access.

Are you in the process of submitting your manuscript and expect to get it accepted for publishing before the end of 2021? Consider choosing a journal from another publisher.

If the acceptance and peer-review process takes until after 31 December, the new 2022 quotas will be in place, and you’re good to go.

Funder requirements?

Should your research funder (e.g. NWO or Horizon Europe) require you to share your publications immediately (no embargo) and under an open license, please contact us for advice.

Our advice: go green!

Open Access publishing usually entails costs for authors, the Article Processing Charges (APC). The publisher will charge the submitting/corresponding author. In return, the authors will retain their copyright. They can determine the use and reuse of their article (via a CC license), and their published article will be immediately freely available for the public.

The APC is considered part of the research costs, and a corresponding author will have to settle the expenses with the research budget, the funder or the faculty.

Through agreements with publishers, the University Library ensures, independently or in a VSNU consortium, that the publishers do not charge the full APC. You can find your discounts and the conditions via our APC Deals and Discounts overview, and you can look up the options for each journal in our Open Access Journal Browser.

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Green Open Access

There is more than one way to make your work Open Access. Your options depend on the requirements of involved parties, like an external funder.

Gold Open Access (Open Acces via a publisher) might be too costly because there is no library discount deal, or for some reason, you do not want to pay the overly high APC. Green Open Access is then the obvious choice.

Green Open Access means that you share the article with a subscription license at no cost. This traditional publishing license is only possible with subscription (hybrid) journals, and choosing this license means that you have to transfer your copyright to the publisher. After publishing the article, we will help you make your article Green Open Access via the university repository (Pure).

Green Open Access is free (no APC), but there are sometimes restrictions regarding version, embargo and reuse. But the article will be freely accessible for everyone to download and read.

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Two options for Green Open Access supported by the University Library

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1. The published version – You share, we take care! (Taverne)

By participating in “You share, we take care!”, the University Library will automatically share publisher’s versions of your paywalled articles with the world after six months. Free and legal.

Many UM researchers already signed up for this service. If you did, you’re safe. You do not have to do so again.

To participate, follow this link and sign up (opt-in) once to make it legal for us to help you share your work.

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2. The accepted version

You can also share a paywalled article by depositing your article’s accepted version (accepted author manuscript) in the UM repository.

The accepted manuscript is the final version of your manuscript after peer review and acceptance. Possibly further formatted and supplemented with additional metadata by you. It has no publisher layout.

To deposit and share accepted versions of your articles, follow this link to the upload service.

More information

• Springer Nature – Publisher (APC) deals and discounts
• Emerald – Publisher (APC) deals and discounts
• Open Access Journal Browser
• “You share, we take care!” – Taverne
• Archive and share accepted author versions
• VSNU Springer Nature press release

We will continuously update the APC discounts information on our Publisher (APC) deals and discounts pages and the Open Access Journal Browser.

If you have questions, you can always reach us via the contact form below.

About this post 

• Author: Ron Aardening
• Source: Maastricht University Library
• Image: Maastricht University
• Categories: Library+ Research news & events
• Keywords: APC, Emerald, Open Access, Publishing, Springer Nature
• 24 September 2021
• License: CC-BY 4.0