The DEAL Consortium and Elsevier Announce Transformative Open Access Agreement for Germany

The DEAL Consortium 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開く, representing the German research institutions, and Elsevier, a global leader in scientific information and data analytics, are delighted to announce a transformative open access agreement for Germany. The landmark five-year agreement, signed on 1 September by Elsevier and the DEAL operating entity, MPDL Services gGmbH (MPDLS), is set to run until the end of 2028 and is designed to make a large part of German research openly accessible worldwide.

The agreement, forged through collaboration and mutual understanding, supports the transition to open access in Germany, enabling researchers to publish open access and read content across Elsevier’s extensive portfolio of high quality and trusted scientific journals including leading brands such as Cell Press and The Lancet, while meeting DEAL’s objectives of affordability and sustainability.

Under the terms of the agreement, authors from participating institutions can publish their articles in Elsevier's journals with immediate open access based on a per-article fee charged to their institution, enabling researchers around the world to access and benefit from their results. In addition, institutions will receive discounts on the list prices for their researchers' publications in fully open access Elsevier journals. Participating institutions will also have reading access to virtually the entire portfolio of Elsevier journals on ScienceDirect, the world’s largest platform dedicated to peer-reviewed primary scientific and medical research.

The transformative agreement is designed to offer good value to the German research community. Institutions will soon be invited to participate in order to bring it into effect.

Prof. Günter M. Ziegler, President of Freie Universität Berlin and DEALs lead negotiator, said: “We believe that this agreement is a significant step forward for the scientific community and demonstrates that positive change can be achieved through persistent effort and a shared commitment to open science. By working together, we can further advance the principles of transparency, accessibility and collaboration that underpin the pursuit of knowledge. The agreement fulfils the key objectives set out by the Alliance of Science Organizations in Germany for the DEAL negotiations in enabling open access publishing and reading across Elsevier’s portfolio. This agreement will substantially enhance the global visibility of Germany's cutting-edge research while promoting open access to publicly funded science.”

Kumsal Bayazit, CEO of Elsevier, remarked: “We are very pleased to be able to support German researchers to publish their research with immediate open access in Elsevier’s journals. The DEAL Consortium and Elsevier worked together collaboratively and pragmatically to support Germany’s world-leading academic and science organizations achieve their research goals for the benefit of society. Elsevier is committed to continue to support our customers to achieve their objectives.”

Dr. Frank Sander, Managing Director at MPDLS, said: “This agreement is the result of the collective commitment of all German higher education, research and research infrastructure organizations acting jointly through MPDL Services gGmbH. Reflecting our shared vision for an open and affordable system of scholarly communication that maximizes the impact of research, the agreement provides DEAL institutions with cost-effective open access publishing and reading services, and we are delighted to support them in implementing the agreement to extend these benefits to scholars and scientists across the German research landscape.”

The agreement as well as further information on its terms and conditions and the sign-up process, can be found here:

(ENG) https://deal-konsortium.de/en/agreements/elsevier 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開く

(DE) https://deal-konsortium.de/vertraege/elsevier 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開く

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Notes to editors

About the DEAL Consortium

The DEAL Consortium 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開く, instituted by the Alliance of German Science Organizations 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開く and led by the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開く aims at concluding nationwide "publish and read" agreements with the three largest commercial publishers of scholarly journals. The objective of DEAL is to secure agreements that ensure the immediate publication of research articles by authors from German institutions as open access articles and that provide perpetual full-text access to the publisher's entire journal portfolio, while at the same time achieving fair and reasonable pricing for these services through a simple and forward-looking model based on the number of articles published. The DEAL Consortium is open to around 1,000 mostly publicly funded academic institutions in Germany, including universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutes, and state and regional libraries.

About MPDL Services gGmbH

The DEAL Operating Entity MPDL Services 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開く gGmbH(MPDLS) boosts the visibility of the scientific community in Germany by securing open access publishing services and access to scientific literature for researchers. It provides the infrastructure and know-how to enable research institutions across Germany to benefit collectively and equitably from the cost-effectiveness of the nationwide DEAL agreements with scholarly publishers, and it concludes such DEAL agreements for the use and benefit of the scientific community in Germany. Comprising members of the Alliance of Science Organization 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開くs, MPDL Services, a non-profit organization (gGmbH), provides a crucial framework for the transition to open access in Germany and supports institutions in redirecting their investments in scholarly publishing towards the open dissemination of research.

エルゼビアについて エルゼビアは、科学情報と分析を牽引するグローバル企業として、研究者や医療従事者が社会の利益のために科学を進歩させ、医療成果を向上させることを支援しています。我々は信頼できるエビデンスベースのコンテンツと高度なAI対応デジタルテクノロジーに基づくソリューションにより、インサイトと重要な意思決定を促進することでこれを実現しています。

エルゼビアは、140 年以上にわたり研究および医療コミュニティの活動を支援してきました。全世界で 2,500 人以上の技術者を含む 9,500 人の従業員がおり、重要な職務における研究者や、図書館員、アカデミックリーダー、資金提供者、政府機関、R&D 関連企業、医師、看護師、将来の医療従事者や教育者を支援することに従事してきました。2,900 誌以上の科学ジャーナルと代表的な参考文献には、Cell Press、The Lancet、Gray's Anatomy など、各分野の主要なタイトルを含みます。 エルゼビア・ファウンデーション 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開くと共に、開発途上国および世界中の科学、研究、医療分野におけるインクルージョン＆ダイバーシティを推進するため、支援コミュニティと連携して活動しています。 エルゼビアは、プロフェッショナルおよびビジネス顧客向けの情報に基づく分析および意思決定ツールのグローバルプロバイダーである RELX 新しいタブ／ウィンドウで開くグループの一部です。業務内容やデジタルソリューション、コンテンツ詳細については、 www.elsevier.com/ja-jpをご参照ください。