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

The DEAL Consortium 打開新的分頁／視窗, 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 打開新的分頁／視窗

(DE) https://deal-konsortium.de/vertraege/elsevier 打開新的分頁／視窗

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Notes to editors

About the DEAL Consortium

The DEAL Consortium 打開新的分頁／視窗, instituted by the Alliance of German Science Organizations 打開新的分頁／視窗 and led by the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) 打開新的分頁／視窗 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 打開新的分頁／視窗 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 打開新的分頁／視窗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.

關於 Elsevier

身為科學資訊與分析的全球領導者，Elsevier 協助研究人員與醫療照護專業人員推動科學發展，改善醫療成果，造福社會。我們以可信賴、以實證為基礎的內容和先進的 AI 數位技術為基礎，透過創新的解決方案促進洞察力和關鍵決策。

140 多年來，我們一直為研究和醫療保健界的工作提供支援。我們全球 9,500 名員工，包括 2,300 名技術人員，致力於支援研究人員、圖書館館長、學術領袖、資金提供者、政府、研發密集型公司、醫生、護士、未來醫療保健專業人員和教育工作者的重要工作。我們的 2,900 種科學期刊和經典參考工具書包括其領域中最重要的書籍，包括 Cell Press、The Lancet 和 Gray's Anatomy。 我們與愛思唯爾基金會 (Elsevier Foundation 打開新的分頁／視窗) 合作，與我們服務的社群攜手合作，在發展中國家和世界各地的科學、研究和醫療保健領域推動包容性和多樣性。 Elsevier 是 RELX 打開新的分頁／視窗 的一部分，RELX 打開新的分頁／視窗 是一家為專業和商業客戶提供以資訊為基礎的分析和決策工具的全球供應商。有關我們的工作、數位解決方案和內容的更多資訊，請造訪 www.elsevier.com 。