Open Access Publishing

• Authors from participating institutions with submitting corresponding author status publish Open Access articles in more than 2,500 Elsevier journals, including Cell Press and The Lancet journals.

• Participating institutions receive a 20% discount on the list price of Article Processing Charges (APCs) for Elsevier Fully Gold journals and a 15% discount on the list price of Fully Gold Cell Press and The Lancet journals.

Reading access

• Participating institutions receive access rights to almost the entire Elsevier journal portfolio, including the Cell Press and The Lancet titles (see list of journal titles). Access to journal content published during the years of the agreement remains permanently available to the participating institution (perpetual access).

• The agreement includes an option to purchase the archive. This was to be carried out by MPDLS gGmbH, subject to funding approval by the DFG, to secure permanent access rights to Elsevier content up to and including 2022 for the consortium and all institutions eligible for national licences. This was to be achieved at no additional cost and independently of participation in the DEAL agreement in order to provide a seamless link and fill gaps in existing national licences. However, the unsuccessful application for funding from the DFG has put the archive purchase on hold for the time being.

Pricing Model

• Paper Charge Model: Participating institutions will pay a Publish and Read Fee (PAR Fee) or an Article Processing Charge (APC), as specified in the contract, for each publication in Elsevier's Core Hybrid and Fully Gold journals by submitting corresponding authors assigned to their institution. All fees incurred will be invoiced to the participating institutions by MPDL Services gGmbH.

• The PAR Fee for publications in Core Hybrid journals is €2,550 net. In the case of a high participation rate (more than 90% of the German publication volume in Elsevier journals in 2022 is covered by the participating institutions), the PAR fee will be reduced by 2% to €2,500 net. In both cases, the PAR fee is subject to an annual increase of 3% from 2025.

• For publications in Cell Press and The Lancet hybrid journals, the APC is €6,450 net. It is subject to an annual increase of 4% from 2025.

• For publications in Elsevier's Fully Gold Open Access journals, the APCs are calculated according to the list prices charged to participating institutions minus the agreed discounts (see above).

Eligible institutions can join the agreement at any time. Institutions that are already part of the DEAL Consortium have received their participation documents via MPDL Services End of September 2023. All interested institutions that haven't received their documents yet are welcome to contact MPDL Services gGmbH.