Pursuant to Article 25fa of the Copyright Act, researchers may make the publisher’s version of their articles available Open Access after a reasonable period of time after the first publication (6 months). The verbatim text of the amendment is as follows:
The maker of a short scientific work, the research for which has been paid for in whole or in part by Dutch public funds, shall be entitled to make that work available to the public for no consideration following a reasonable period of time after the work was first published, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication of the work.
Scholarly work published during your affiliation with Erasmus MC can be made Open Access via the Taverne Amendment under the following conditions:
- The publication is financed in whole or in part with Dutch public funds.
- The creator(s) is/are employed by a Dutch university; the creators can be both authors and co-authors.
- It is a short scientific work; the length of a scientific article, a book chapter or a conference proceeding.
The principles of the Taverne Amendment have been adopted by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (UNL) and the board of the National Programme for Open Science (NPOS). These principles include the expiry of an embargo after six months, so that all published articles, chapters and conference proceedings in the University’s repository can become available Open Access from that time. Erasmus University Rotterdam is currently working on designing a simple procedure for a broad roll-out.