About DEAL

Breaking news:

February 18, 2019:
The contract between DEAL and the publisher Wiley, signed on the 15th of January 2019 by Wiley and the MPDL Services GmbH, is now available here.

January 15, 2019:
The Project DEAL is happy to announce the conclusion and signing of the first major “DEAL” with Wiley!
The agreement based on the “Publish&Read” modell includes the most important goals of the Project: Publication of all future scientific articles in Open Access at no extra costs and permament access for all participating institutions to the entire portfolio of e-journals of the publisher, as far back as 1997.

For further information, see here.

Robert-Jan Smits.
Credits: Wiley/picture alliance/Tanja M. Marotzke
EU-Senior Adviser for Open Access and Innovation, Robert-Jan Smits, at the press conference after the contract signing. Credits: MPG

Project aim

The goal of Project DEAL is to conclude nationwide licensing agreements for the entire portfolio of electronic journals (E-journals) from major academic publishers. The intention is also to bring about significant change to the status quo in relation to negotiations, content and pricing in the process. The effects of a consortium agreement at the national level should relieve the financial burden on individual institutions and bring wide-scale, lasting improvements in access to scholarly literature for academics. An open access component is also planned.

The potential exists for several hundred institutions – such as universities, universities of applied sciences, research institutions, state and regional libraries – to participate in such a DEAL licence.

The initiative was commissioned by the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany – represented by the German Rectors’ Conference, the HRK. 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, and Mr. Frank Scholze, Director of the KIT Library Karlsruhe, the two members of the project group seconded from the HRK.

Project structure

Project group

Project staff

  • Wiebke Beckmann, University Library Freiburg (communications and coordination)
  • Gottfried Haufe, University Library Freiburg (public relations)
  • Laura Hoppmann, Max Planck Digital Library Munich (bibliometrics, data acquisition)