Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Thursday, July 31, 2008

Dutch university launches temporary OA journal fund

The Delft University of Technology has launched a fund to help faculty pay publication fees at fee-based OA journals.  From its announcement (July 1, 2008):

TU Delft Library is supporting the world-wide propagation of knowledge via open access publication. An Open Access incentive fund has been set up to help with the financial side of Open Access publication....

Researchers will be able to apply to the fund for help with financing OA publication costs (OA author’s fees) until the end of 2008. All applications for a refund of the author’s fee for OA publications in peer-reviewed journals will be honoured until the fund runs dry. Our website provides more information on this subject and an order form for requesting a refund of the author’s fee....

From the fund page (English version):

The funding of Open Access publishing is primarily the responsibility of the faculty or research group to which a researcher belongs. If your faculty will not pay the OA author fee, then help is available from a (temporary) Open Access Publishing Fund. Researchers can, at least until the end of 2008, utilise this fund to finance OA publishing costs. For the sake of clarity: this money is intended only for the funding of 'open access publications with peer review' from 1 April 2008 and is not intended for the ‘normal’ publication costs. Applications meeting the defined criteria will be met as long as the fund is not exhausted.

Comment.  I applaud this support for OA.  But I'll add that any university willing to pay these fees should also be willing to adopt a policy to encourage or require OA archiving for the research output of the institution.  The two strategies are compatible and complementary.  Delft signed the Berlin Declaration, runs an institutional repository, and has hosted a useful wiki devoted to OA since April 2007.  But I don't believe it has yet adopted a strong OA policy for its own research output, for example, as Harvard and 20+ other universities around the world have done.