Project DEAL

Open Access publishing as part of the DEAL agreements with Elsevier, Springer Nature and Wiley from 2024 onwards

The Project DEAL, which is supported by theAlliance of Science Organizations in Germany, has been negotiating nationwide licensing agreements since 2016 with the aim of offering participating institutions permanent full-text access to all the publishers' journals and the option of Open Access publishing.

Under the auspices of the German Rectors' Conference, DEAL agreements were concluded with the publishers Elsevier, Springer Nature and Wiley in 2023. The rectorate of Bielefeld University has decided to participate in all three agreements. This means that, from 2024, researchers at Bielefeld University will be able to publish openly in a total of more than 7,200 journals published by the three largest academic publishers. At the same time, reading access will be available to the vast majority of journals that are not yet fully open access.

The DEAL contracts with the publishers Wiley and Springer Nature, which have been in place since 2019 and 2020, were renewed on modified terms. More than 2,500 Elsevier journals, including Cell Press and Lancet, will be added from 2024. A separate agreement will remain in place until the end of 2024 for Open Access publishing in Nature branded journals. The aim is to also subsume these magazines under DEAL from 2025.

From 2024, researchers at Bielefeld University will not only be able to publish as submitting corresponding authors in the vast majority of Wiley and Springer Nature journals, but also in almost all Elsevier Open Access journals. The publication and affiliation guidelines must be observed.

It should also be noted that any additional costs per article such as "colour charges" or "page charges" are not covered by the contracts. These additional costs will be charged to the authors and will not be covered by the publication fund of Bielefeld University. Authors are encouraged to use Creative Commons licences for their articles (e.g. CC-BY or CC-BY-SA) and not to use publisher-specific licence types.

Further information on the three DEAL contracts can be found on the DEAL consortium website.

Contact person:
Dr Silvia Herb
Phone: +49 521 106-4012
Room: UHG U3-204
E-mail: oa.ub@uni-bielefeld.de