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Under the Section 25fa of the Copyright Act, a short scientific work – which has not previously been published open access – can after some time nonetheless be made freely accessible by the author.

As of 2024, the University of Amsterdam has decided that for all researchers, short scientific works - that are not already published open access - will be made freely accessible under this article of law.

Because of the decision, researchers no longer need to give explicit permission to the UvA Library for this (opt-in). The Library performs this automatically unless a researcher objects (opt-out).

So how does it work?

You are supposed to register your published research result in Pure. During registration you also add the publisher's version (PDF) of the publication for long-term archiving. If the publication has not been published open access, the Library will - if it is a short scientific work - make the publisher's version freely accessible after an embargo of six months. The Library performs this automatically for publications published and registered after January 1st 2024.

If you have any questions, please email openaccess@uva.nl.

Notes to Section 25fa of the Copyright Act (Taverne Amendment)

The full text of Section 25fa of the Copyright Act reads as follows:

‘The maker of a short scientific work, the research for which has been paid for in whole or in part by Dutch public funds, shall be entitled to make that work available to the public for no consideration following a reasonable period of time after the work was first published, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication of the work.’

Joost Taverne was the submitter of the legislative proposal in the Dutch House of Representatives, which is why it is also known as the ‘Taverne Amendment’. Copyright (contract) law within the Dutch Copyright Act is mandatory law, it takes precedence over contract law; an agreement with a (foreign) publisher does not prevent the use of the provisions in this section of the law. The right cannot be waived and it is not transferable.

The right cannot be relinquished, nor is it transferable; a contract with a Dutch or foreign publisher does not preclude the ability to take advantage of the provisions of this section of the law.

Basic principles*

  • Only scientific journal articles, conference contributions, annotations, book reviews and book chapters in edited collections are considered ‘short scientific works’.
  • The result of research carried out in the course of employment at the UvA is considered to have been funded with Dutch public funds regardless of whether it was partly financed by another party such as the European Union. 
  • Six months after online publication is regarded as a reasonable period of time (regardless of the field).
  • The final version of the work as published by the publisher, the publisher's PDF, i.e. the Version of Record (VoR), is shared.

* Restatement of the section of the law in concrete basic principles by National Plan Open Science (NPOS), assessed in 2019 during the national pilot project You share, we take care! in which the UvA also participated.

Frequently Asked Questions