In September 2023, Elsevier and the German Rectors' Conference announced the successful conclusion of negotiations for a DEAL agreement after negotiations had been broken off in the meantime and several years without a contract. A prerequisite for the permanent conclusion of the agreement is a sufficiently large participation of institutions in Germany. If this is achieved by 15.01.2024, the agreement will run until the end of 2028. On 29.11.2023, the UDE Rectorate decided to join the agreement with retroactive effect from 01.09.2023.

Key points of the agreement include:

• permanent reading access to around 1.800 Elsevier journals and around 50 journals from Cell Press and The Lancet,
• Open Access publication option for UDE corresponding authors in these hybrid journals (retroactively from 01.09.2023),
• centrally administered publishing in around 660 Gold Open Access journals retroactively from 01.09.2023, with a 20% discount on the list price of Article Processing Charges (APCs) for Elsevier Core journals and 15% for Cell Press and The Lancet Gold OA Journals.

The Publish & Read fees for read access and OA publishing in hybrid journals as well as the APCs for publications in Gold Open Access journals for 2023 will be financed retroactively from September and centrally for 2024. The University Library is responsible for processing the invoices.

A current overview of all magazines covered by the contract can be found here.