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The Norwegian Consortium for Higher Education and Research (UNIT) succeeded in concluding a national Read&Publish license agreement with the publishing house Elsevier.

The deal for the country’s 7 universities and 39 research institutions, announced on 23 April, is a two-year pilot programme that will ensure access to more than 16 million publications from over 2,500 journals published by Elsevier. It is now possible for Norwegian researchers to disseminate articles in Open Access in approximately 90% of the Elsevier journals (excluding The Lancet, Cell Press and 400 other journals run by scientific societies).

UNIT expects around 2,000 Open Access publications per year, which are included in the contract for around CHF 10 million (p.a.). This corresponds to a price increase of 3% compared to the previous license agreement without an Open Access option. When the number of 2,000 OA articles per year is reached, APC fees will be charged for each additional OA publication at the respective list price.

In line with the national Open Access policy, UNIT aims to ensure that all Norwegian research publications are freely accessible by 2024. In this context, efforts are being made to win over the excluded and at the same time most renowned journals for a future Open Access deal.

It is now exciting to see what consequences this will have on the deadlocked negotiations in Germany (Project DEAL) or the upcoming national negotiations in Switzerland (Factsheet negotiation strategy).

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Further information:

UNIT Press Release Elsevier and Norway Agree on New Open-Access Deal. Diana Kwon. In: The Scientist, 24 April 2019, https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/elsevier-and-norway-agree-on-new-open-access-deal-65789

Picture Credits: Simon Migaj on unsplash