DEAL Agreement with Springer Nature

Another Leap Towards Open Access

Logo des Projekt DEAL – Bundesweite Lizenzierung von Angeboten großer Wissenschaftsverlage

Within the scope of Project DEAL, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by publisher Springer Nature and DEAL on 22 August 2019. The MoU defines the framework for an extensive open access (OA) agreement and outlines the key points of the future contract to be finalized between the two parties.

The transformative two-tier agreement includes a “fully” OA component and a “publish and read” component. This means that eligible authors can publish open access in the more than 600 Springer Nature OA journals as well as the more than 1,900 Springer Nature hybrid journals. In addition, the agreement grants the participating institutions permanent reading access to all content in Springer, Palgrave, Adis, and Macmillan journals published during the contract term.

Key elements of the MoU:

  • Term of the final contract: 2020–2022, with the option of an extension until 2023.
  • For 2020, the “publish and read” (PAR) component is based on OA publication of at least 9,500 articles, and grants participating institutions permanent access to 1,900 journals from the Springer, Palgrave, Adis, and Macmillan portfolio. For access and OA publishing, the PAR component includes a PAR fee of € 2,750 per article. This PAR fee cannot be equated with typical article processing charges (APCs) at market conditions: it also includes the costs of reading access and the complete portfolio of subscription journals.
  • Springer Nature will grant all institutions a 20 % discount on list prices for OA publishing in BioMed Central and SpringerOpen journals; increases in APC list prices will amount to no more than 3.5 % per journal per year, based on the list price for 2020.
  • The PAR component does not include Nature or Nature-branded journals; it also excludes professional journals and magazines such as Automobiltechnische Zeitschrift (ATZ), Motortechnische Zeitschrift (MTZ), Scientific American, or Spektrum der Wissenschaft.
  • During the contract term, participating institutions will furthermore have backfile access to all issues of included journals from 1997 onwards.
  • Springer Nature and Project DEAL will also work towards closing the gaps in access to archive content of all Springer Nature journals included in the MoU.

Impact on Forschungszentrum Jülich:

  • From the beginning of the contract term, all publications in subscription journals with a submitting corresponding author from Forschungszentrum Jülich can be published open access at no additional cost. As soon as a detailed workflow has been determined, the Central Library (ZB) will provide the relevant information.
  • There will be no change to OA publications in BioMed Central and SpringerOpen since Forschungszentrum Jülich already has a contract providing a 20 % discount on list prices. ZB will continue to cover these costs.
  • The amount each participating institution will have to pay, and the corresponding billing procedure, have yet to be determined. Given that Forschungszentrum Jülich already had a fairly favourable contract with Springer Nature relative to our publication output, no financial savings are expected. However, Jülich will now additionally enjoy access to the subscription journals listed above.

Contact:
Dr. Bernhard Mittermaier
Email: b.mittermaier@fz-juelich.de
Tel.: +49 02461 61-3013
Head of the Central Library

Last Modified: 07.06.2022