The maximum reimbursement is €8,000 (incl. VAT) per book. The amount reimbursed for edited volumes is proportional to the number of UG editors involved (e.g. if there are four co-editors, of which one is from the UG, we will fund 25% of the BPC up to a max. of €8,000). 

Monographs and edited volumes. Book chapters are not eligible. Books that have been published recently are eligible for retroactive reimbursement (i.e. fees for flipping closed access books to open access retrospectively). Please note that permission to flip a book to open access has to be cleared with the publisher first. The University Library will decide on a case-by-case basis whether requests for retroactive reimbursement are eligible. 

Author(s) and/or editor(s) have to be affiliated with the UG or the UMCG.

NB: For authors funded by external funders (e.g. NWO, EU) the first point of call for funding should be their funder. Authors are therefore strongly encouraged to budget for open access costs in their grant applications and/or make use of the available funder schemes (e.g. NWO’s OA Book Fund). If funding for open access is not available in the grant budget or if the grant has ended, authors are encouraged to apply. In case the funding provided by the external funder is insufficient, authors can apply for the OA Book Fund to cover the remainder of the BPC. The University Library will decide on a case-by-case basis whether the request is eligible. 

Publishers should ideally meet the basic requirements set by the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). In addition to meeting the DOAB criteria, publishers are (strongly) encouraged to assign a DOI to the publication and deposit it in the OAPEN-Library to enhance its discoverability. The University Library will check whether these criteria are met. If the requirements cannot be fully met, authors are invited to still contact the University Library to discuss the publisher's eligibility.

Books must be published under a Creative Commons license. The authors shall retain copyright to the publication.

To request funding, please complete the OA Book Fund application form. Ideally this should be done while you are negotiating the contract with a publisher. Applications will be assessed against the eligibility criteria described above and will be evaluated on a rolling basis by a committee composed of open access and publishing experts from the University Library. The committee reserves the right to consult faculties and institute directors in case of doubt about the eligibility of a request. 

The University Library team is here to help and advise you with regard to book contract negotiations. If you have any questions and require assistance, please indicate this in the application form or simply contact us at openaccess rug.nl or openaccess umcg.nl.