Quota-based publishing agreements: Taylor & Francis, Oxford University Press, and Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2024 quotas expected to be reached

Dutch university libraries have several agreements in place with different traditional academic publishers. These agreements allow corresponding authors affiliated with Dutch Universities and University Medical Centers (UMC) to publish their peer-reviewed journal articles open access, at no additional cost. Some of these agreements, however, include a limited number of articles (also referred to as a ‘cap’).

Currently, this is the case for the Springer deal – whose quota for this year is expected to be reached in late October – but also for Emerald, American Chemical Society, AIP Publishing, Taylor & Francis, Oxford University Press, and Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW). As for these last three publishers, and for the first time in recent years, their article quotas for 2024 are expected to be reached soon.

For LWW, it is expected that the quota will be reached in early October. As for Taylor & Francis and Oxford University Press, the quota for this year is anticipated to be reached in the third week of November. Once this limit is met, authors will no longer be able to publish under the agreement without incurring additional costs. Researchers who want to stay informed about the status of the cap of the publisher's agreements can sign in for a ‘notify-me service’.

If your manuscript is accepted between the cap being reached and January 1, 2025, the publishers will still offer the possibility to publish Open Access, but the Article Processing Charges (APC) will not be covered by the agreements and will need to be covered by the author. If you are faced with this situation and lack the funds to cover these costs, the best alternative is to choose to publish under ‘closed-access’ and making use of the Taverne amendment to share your article in your institutional repository after a six-month embargo. The procedure differs per university and UMC.

Note, however, that the Taverne route is not sufficient to meet the Open Access requirements of Plan S-affiliated funders such as NWO and ERC. If this applies to you, we advise you to contact your university library to discuss your options.

You can also contact your university library with any questions about the Taverne procedure, publisher deals, or publication strategy in general