The Helmholtz Association of German research centres has announced that 16 of its centres will stop their licence agreements with publisher Elsevier at the end of 2017.
In a statement on 25 August, Helmholtz said “the largest German research organisation has now joined the more than 100 scientific institutions that have terminated or not extended their licence agreements with Elsevier, in order to strengthen the negotiating position of the Deal project.”
The Deal project, led by the HRK, Germany’s association of rectors, on behalf of the Alliance of Science Organisations, has been trying since 2016 to negotiate a nationwide licence with Elsevier. As well as negotiating a pricing model, the alliance wants all scientific institutions involved in Deal to have permanent access to all Elsevier e-journals, and for all publications by authors at German institutions to be immediately made open access.
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