Open Access Monitor

In the period 2016-2017 UNL (then VSNU) – together with a number of experts working at universities – formulated definitions concerning the monitoring of open access publications. With the aid of these definitions, the universities conducted an official study of open access performance in 2016, the results of which were presented to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science at the end of 2017. This study found that 42% of articles in the Netherlands in 2016 were open access publications. The percentage has subsequently increased further: 

• 50% in 2017
• 54% in 2018
• 62% in 2019
• 73% in 2020
• 82% in 2021
• 89% in 2022
• 92% in 2023

These percentages should be regarded as an initial monitoring of open access publications. There are still some inconsistencies in terms of validity and reliability amongst the measurements used.

Table 1: Percentages OA publications 2016-2025 Dutch universities by category.

[1] To determine which open access journals are available, we use the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). This is an online register of open access, peer-reviewed journals.

[2] With "Hybrid and non-DOAJ OA" we mean open articles in paid journals and open articles in open journals that are not included in the DOAJ;

[3] "Green OA only" refers to articles that are only open access accessible through a "trusted repository". "Trusted repositories" does not therefore look for articles from DOAJ journals and hybrid articles.