A preliminary agreement has been reached between the Association of Dutch Universities (VSNU) and Elsevier for full Gold Open Access to all articles published in the journals issued by the latter in exchange for access to the institutional research information of the former's member institutions.
As per the terms of this agreement – still under negotiation – a number of pilots around open science and research intelligence will be conducted in collaboration between both parties. Four principles have been agreed to undertake this collaboration in a way that addresses the concerns raised within the open science community. These principles are: interoperability (i.e. no vendor lock-in), future-proof, vendor-agnostic and research information ownership.