About DEAL

Breaking news:

We are happy to announce the signing of an Open Access agreement with Springer Nature today.

See the press release here. Key elements of the agreement are listed here.

What is Projekt DEAL?

The German Rectors’ Conference was tasked by the Alliance of German Science Organizations to institute Projekt DEAL to negotiate nationwide transformative “publish and read” agreements with the largest commercial publishers of scholarly journals on behalf of all German academic institutions including universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutions, state and regional libraries.

What are the objectives of Projekt DEAL?

The objectives of Projekt DEAL are to achieve:

  • Immediate open access publication of all new research articles by authors from German institutions
  • Permanent full-text access to the publisher’s complete journal portfolio
  • Fair and reasonable pricing for such services articulated with a simple and future-oriented model based on the number of articles published,

These goals are in alignment with the objectives of the global Open Access 2020 Initiative, the LIBER principles for publisher negotiations, and the principles of Plan S. Learn more about negotiation principles for transformative and open access agreements at the ESAC Initiative.

Project structure:

To carry out the project, the Alliance has brought together a project group including the relevant experts from universities and other institutions. The group will be piloted by a project steering committee comprising members from the highest levels of management at universities and other institutions. The spokesperson for the project steering committee is Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Horst Hippler, former President of the German Rectors’ Conference. Contact persons for the project group are Dr. Antje Kellersohn, Director of the University Library Freiburg, seconded from the HRK.

Project group:

Project staff:

  • Jan C. Werner, University Library Freiburg (communications and coordination)
  • Gottfried Haufe, University Library Freiburg (public relations)
  • Laura Hoppmann, Max Planck Digital Library Munich (bibliometrics, data acquisition)