18 February 2025

Leiden University currently has 22 Read & Publish agreements with academic publishers. As of January 2025, a number of agreements have been renewed, like the ones with Elsevier and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Leiden researchers may now publish open access in many (but not all) journals affiliated to these publishers without incurring extra costs. The Leiden Journal Browser provides a searchable overview of all journals covered by these agreements.

Changed conditions Elsevier

Several important changes were made in the new agreement with Elsevier, like the extensive clause that was included on Text & Data Mining (TDM) and the use of AI tools by researchers. The universities aimed at giving researchers as much freedom as possible in their choice to use TDM or AI tools for research published in Elsevier journals. Elsevier has, however, denoted some limitations. The specific permitted applications and conditions are described in article 5.4, (p. 31-32) of the agreement.

Starting this year, articles published in Elsevier journals will get a CC BY open license by default. Other licenses are available on request via email to Elsevier. The Dutch model license for agreements with publishers was used as the starting point of the negotiations with Elsevier. This has been a great step forward in the negotiation position of the Universities of the Netherlands (UNL).

• open access
• open science