THE FIRST DEAL
AGREEMENTS
2019-2023:
Setting the Pathfor Open Accessand Transparency

THE FIRST DEAL AGREEMENTS 2019-2023:
SETTING THE PATH FOR
OPEN ACCESS AND TRANSPARENCYTHE GOALS OF DEAL
Reflecting the initiative's shared commitment to improving access to scientific publications in Germany, DEAL has set three key negotiating objectives:

The landscape of scholarly publishinghas undergone a fundamental change inrecent years. A key driver of this changein Germany has been the DEAL consortium, which has negotiated nationwide
open access (OA) agreements with leading scientific publishers to help shape
the transition to an OA-based academic
publishing system. Find out more about
the aims, objectives and achievements ofthe first phase of DEAL agreements withWiley and Springer Nature.

THE ROAD TO DEAL

OPEN ACCESS:The DEAL initiative was launched in 2014
when the German Alliance Science
Organisations commissioned the German Rectors' Conference to negotiate
nationwide licensing agreements withthe three largest academic publishers(Elsevier, Wiley, Springer Nature), initially as a response to the increasing pressure on library budgets due to rising
journal prices, which meant that manylibraries could no longer guarantee theirresearchers and students access to key
research literature.

Scientific authors in Germany should havethe opportunity to make their research
results immediately and freely accessible
worldwide, so that their work can be used
and built upon by peers around the world.

The DEAL project, set up and funded by
the Alliance partners, aimed to negotiate better terms with the three largest
academic publishers and, if possible,
to standardise conditions for all institutions in the country. It quickly became
clear that the contracts to be negotiated would also have to make substantial
progress in the area of open access, thatis, permanent free access to research
literature and the right of scientific authors to retain their copyright, a goal towhich academic institutions in Germany
and around the world have been committed since the early 2000s.

2

WITH WHICH PUBLISHING HOUSESDID RESEARCHERS IN GERMANY
PUBLISH THEIR WORK IN 2023?
Wiley 11%EQUAL ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE:

Springer
Nature 19%

All research, teaching and learning institutions in Germany should have permanent and equal access to scholarly journals.

Elsevier 20%

FAIR PRICING MODEL:
Achieving these goals will require a new
pricing model based on the actual numberof publications by German institutions,taking into account their total expenditureon journal subscriptions, and adapting itto the new terms. A transparent price per
publication will ultimately provide thebasis for informed negotiations and pricereductions.

Others 50%

According to the Open Access Monitor,
half of the publications in scientific journals originating from German institutions in 2023 were published by Elsevier,Springer Nature and Wiley.

3ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE 1 ST AGREEMENT PHASE:

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING
What is open access publishing?
While the subscription model requires readersor their institutions to pay for access to scholarly
publications, open access publishing allows scholarly work to be made available without financial,legal or technical barriers. Instead of the rights to
use the publications being held exclusively by thepublishers, which restricts the dissemination andre-use of research results, free licences such as
Creative Commons allow others to use, shareand build on the works under clearly definedconditions.

TOTAL PUBLICATIONSUNDER THE 1ST DEAL
AGREEMENT PHASE

OVER

105,000

Who has published under DEAL?

SHARE OFOPEN-ACCESS
PUBLICATIONS:

The first generation of DEAL agreements werenegotiated on an "all-in" basis, i.e. all research
articles in Wiley and Springer Nature journals submitted and accepted for publication by researchers
from German DEAL-eligible institutions (approximately 1,000) were cleared by the DEAL consortium, so that authors could take advantage of open
access publishing, regardless of whether their institution had actively participated in the agreements
or not.

97%
As part of the publication process, researchers can opt out of theopen access option offered by DEAL. On average over the entire
contract period and across both publishers, only 3% made useof this option, meaning that over 97% of articles invoiced under
DEAL were published under a free open access licence.

Publication figures as of June 2024,
subject to minor changes.

45OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHINGHYBRID AND GOLD OPEN ACCESS PUBLICATIONS UNDER
THE 2019-2023 DEAL AGREEMENTS BY PUBLISHERWILEY2019*2020

2021

2022

2023

TOTAL

HYBRID

4.780

10.039

9.747

8.656

8.454

41.676

GOLD500882

1.054

1.130

1.437

5.003

TOTAL

5.280

10.92110.801

9.786

9.891

46.679Hybrid and gold open access, what's
the difference?
Hybrid and gold open access (OA) are twoways of publishing articles openly in scholarly journals. Hybrid journals are a mixture ofsubscription-based and OA publications, andauthors are required to pay extra to make theirindividual articles OA. Gold OA journals publish all their articles as open access by default.
DEAL agreements support both types of OA
publishing, although hybrid journals make up
the larger part of publishers' journal portfolios
and DEAL helps to increase the proportion ofOA content in these journals.

*Contract start date for the Wiley hybrid component is 1 July 2019. 2019 figures not exactly captured.

SPRINGER NATURE
2019

2020*

2021

2022

2023

TOTAL

HYBRID-

10.236

11.54810.586

10.41442.784

GOLD-

1.842

4.760

4.565

4.704

15.871

TOTAL-

12.07816.30815.151

15.11858.655*Start of contract 2020; start of SN Gold component 1 August 2020.

67

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING

2014-18 PRE DEAL

2019-23 DEAL

Gold OA 23%

Gold OA 34%

Closed 33%

GROWTH IN OPEN ACCESSThe Open Access Monitor platform provides data on the development of openaccess publishing. The charts show thedistribution of publications by corresponding authors* from Germany in theyears 2014-2018 (before DEAL) and in thefirst phase of the DEAL agreements between 2019 and 2023 across the publication models "gold open access", "hybrid
open access" and "closed Access".
There is a clear shift towards open access,including a halving of the proportion ofpublications that are not freely accessible.

Hybrid OA 7%

Closed 70%
Hybrid OA 33%

Corresponding author publications from Germany inthe respective period in total, rounded (according toOA Monitor):

2014-20182019-2023

296.000

389.000* Corresponding authors are responsible for submitting
a multi-author publication to a journal, liaising with theeditors throughout the review and publising process, andacting as the primary contact for reader queries.

89DEAL CONSORTIUM

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE 1 ST AGREEMENT PHASE:READING ACCESSIMPROVED NATIONAL INFORMATION PROVISION THROUGHA STABLE AND HIGH LEVEL OF
PARTICIPATIONThe nationwide information provision foruniversities, research institutes and manyother institutions such as public authorities
and hospitals has been significantly improved by the DEAL agreements by enabling
equal and comprehensive access to scientific journals for institutions that actively
participated in the agreements.

» Universities 16%» Art colleges 1%» Other institutions 13%» Univ. of Applied Sciences 20%

Around» University hospitals 8%

500» Private universities 9%» Research institutions of the state 2%

INSTITUTIONS

of different types and sizes have been
granted access to the extensive portfolio ofjournals published by Wiley and/or Springer
Nature.

» Federal research institutions 11%
In Germany, around 1,000 institutions are potentially eligible to participate in the DEAL agreements.
During the first agreement phase,around 98% of DEAL publications
originated from around 500 actively
participating institutions.

» Non-university research institutions 19%

Shares of types of institution in the DEAL consortium (as in 2022)

1011

READING ACCESSFIRST-TIME ACCESS TOSCHOLARLY JOURNALSTHROUGH DEAL
The DEAL initiative has significantly
expanded access to scholarly journals
for many institutions, giving many of themaccess to journals from leading publishers
for the first time. In detail:

LEVEL OF PARTICIPATIONAND EVOLUTION
Participation in the DEAL agreements
has been characterised by a high andstable level of participation throughout
the first phase of DEAL agreements. In
fact, there has been a slight increasein the number of newly participating
institutions each year, underlining thegrowing recognition and support forDEAL. At the end of 2023, this positive
development is reflected in the following participation levels:

SPRINGER NATURE:
WILEY:

24%

374

PARTICIPATIONAGREEMENTS SIGNEDOF PARTICIPATION AGREEMENTS
FOR SPRINGER NATURE, AND
SPRINGER NATURE:

14%

OF PARTICIPATIONAGREEMENTS FOR WILEY

were concluded with institutions that had
not previously subscribed to these publishers'
journal content.

12397

WILEY:

511

513

INSTITUTIONS COVERED BY A
PARTICIPATION AGREEMENT

A participation agreement can allow several institutions tobenefit, such as universities and their university hospitals.

13ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE 1 ST AGREEMENT PHASE:

PREVENTING DOUBLEDIPPING

PRICE TRANSPARENCYAND COST EFFICENCY

By introducing the Publish-And-Read (PAR) fee,the DEAL agreements have effectively tackledthe problem of "double dipping" in hybrid OA
scholarly publishing, with library subscription
fees on the one hand, and OA fees for individual
articles, usually paid by authors, on the other.
The DEAL agreements avoid this double burden
on institutions and, by introducing the PAR fee,take a decisive step towards a more transparent
funding model for scholarly publishing.

EXPANDED SERVICESWITH REDUCED OVERALL
EXPENDITURE
DEAL has succeeded in reducing total
expenditure to well below the forecast
costs (see DEAL Cost Modelling Tool),
thereby making important progress in thefinancing of scholarly publishing services
in Germany. The agreements are not only
an effective tool for cost control, but also
improve the scope and quality of theservices provided to German institutions.

PRE DEAL - Subscription costs

DEAL - PAR-Fee» not transparent» annual price increases» read-only access, mostly
fragmented» single, transparent
price per publication» open access publishing services» full reading rights, equally for all participants

rising total expenditure

decreasing total expenditure

What is the PAR Fee?
10071758085DEALin EUR million

7550

Projected (without DEAL)

64676464

2020*

2021

20222023

25

The Publish and Read Fee (PAR) is a key component of DEAL agreements and is an article-based
flat fee that covers both publishing and reading
services under the agreement. This approachfacilitates open access publication of research
results without imposing additional costs on authors. At the same time, it ensures that participating institutions have access to a wide range ofjournals.

0*DEAL expenditure 2020 extrapolated to a full year1415

MORE ACHIEVEMENTS:

IMPROVEDINFRASTRUCTURE AND GREATER
TRANSPARENCY
The DEAL agreements have made significant progress beyond the improvement ofthe agreements themselves, leading to structural changes and improved dynamics
between publishers and academic institutions.

16

STRENGTHENING THE MARKETPRESENCE OF GERMAN ACADEMIC
ORGANISATIONS:MPDL SERVICES GMBH AS A KEY
INFRASTRUCTURE COMPONENT:FLEXIBLE PARTICIPATION MODELSAS A FRAMEWORK FOR OA
TRANSFORMATION:

TRANSPARENCY:

DEAL has strengthened its bargaining
power by consolidating and enhancing
expertise in various areas, including dataanalytics, model innovation and strategiccommunication. This robust position hasenabled the consortium to successfully navigate negotiations and achieve favourable
agreements through unprecedented collaboration.

The establishment of MPDL Services
gGmbH was a crucial step in addressing
the complex challenges of contract implementation and facilitating the transition to open access. By bridging theinterests of academic institutions andpublishers, it promotes more efficient
processes and the standardisation ofpractices.

The development of flexible participation
models for the consortium's institutions
has led to widespread acceptance of thecontracts. These models facilitate thetransition to OA by mitigating risk andenabling all institutions to participate.

Transparency is another key aspect of
DEAL's success, manifesting itself onthree levels: in the costs and prices of
the contract models, in the disclosureof the contracts themselves, and in thepossibility of influencing the workflows
and processes in the publication system as a strong contractual partner,
allowing better co-design and control
by the scientific community.

17

THE OUTLOOKWith the first agreement with Elsevier,
DEAL has now successfully concluded all three of its planned agreementswith major publishers, thus fulfilling its
original mandate. This paves the way
for open access to become the newstandard in Germany. The high level ofacceptance and participation in the second generation of contracts from 2024shows that DEAL is on the right track andthat the vision of free access to scientificknowledge is becoming more and more
realistic.

Links:
DEAL consortium
1st DEAL Wiley agreement
1st DEAL Springer Nature agreement

Imprint:
https://doi.org/10.17617/2.3598239
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