Tag: budget

TU Delft Collections and Publishing Costs for 2026

Posted on by Alastair Dunning

Below is collections and publishing budget for TU Delft in 2026 (subject to final approval as part of the overall library budget). 

The total budget for collections and publishing is €7,615,000, the same as 2025 

Read and Publish deals, sometimes known as Transformative Agreement, are where costs are paid for the right to publish in a publisher’s journals and for access to read those journals.  

Sometimes, the amount for publishing and the amount for access (‘read’) is known. This is why there are different classifications for Read & Publish, Read and Gold OA Publishing.  

Databases are available here. There is also information on the Open Scholarly Communications Fund. Books can be searched via the library catalogue 

Some of these deals are one to one deals between TU Delft and the publisher; for others TU Delft is part of the national consortium managed by SURF. Occasionally, TU Delft also works with other intermediary partners and smaller consortia to sign contracts. 

 

Read & Publish  €2,680,000  All combined Read & Publish deals that do not have a separate APC and Read cost indication 
Read  €2,120,000  Also Read costs including Read & Publish where the amount for Read is known. Also includes some databases 
Gold OA Publishing  €1,320,000  All Gold APC costs including Read costs of Read & Publish deals where the amount for Read is known 
Databases  €831,000   
Books  €190,000   
Educational resources  €324,000   
Open Scholarly Communication fund  €150,000  Support positive initiatives for publishing, infrastructure and innovation 

TU Delft Publishing and Collection Costs, 2026

Library

,

Breakdown of Read and Publish costs at TU Delft 2025

Posted on by Alastair Dunning

Louise Otting, Alastair Dunning, January 2024

In read and publish deals, the read part costs a lot more than the publish part.

Our analysis of 11 read and publish deals for 2025 at TU Delft showed that just 11% of the annual costs were assigned to the publish costs.

Breakdown of Read and Publish costs at TU Delft 2025

For each individual read and publish contract, the amount paid for the publish part varies from 35% to 1%. It’s notable for nearly all the larger contracts (where TU Delft pays more than 250k per year), the figure falls well under 10% – in one contract, the publish costs are around 1%.

Background Data

The analysis was possible because of a tax quirk in the Dutch value added tax (the BTW, Belasting over de Toegevoegde Waarde). Books and periodicals to be read are charged at 9%. But publishing is considered a service and therefore charged at 21%.

Therefore some, but not all, publishers split their costs into separate invoices. It must also be noted that how this split is arrived at somewhat arbitrary.

Publishers based in the Netherlands have tended to decide on the split themselves. For publishers based outside the Netherlands, SURF (that acts as the consortium lead on behalf of Dutch universities and other knowledge institutions) makes the initial decision. This is based on the costs for reading before the R&P deal. However, there are an increasing number of non-Dutch publishers that make the decision on the split themselves.

Implications 

Much of the criticism of read and publish deals has been at lack of transparency in the costs. What are universities actually paying for? And if we break up read and publish deals what will the costs be? 

From an economic perspective, it makes sense that the majority of the costs are placed at the 9% tax rate. Universities have less to pay, and therefore are more likely to purchase.

However, it would be naive to assume that universities could split the current contracts and choose to, for example, only pay for publish contracts.

Any university that attempts to split read and publishing contracts is very unlikely to find the existing tariff for publishing continues. Publishers will claim they are helping to work more cheaply because of the very fact that read and publish are bundled together. Split them up, publishers will say, and the cost will rise.

But if the cost of a separate publish only deal does rise, the university is again obliged to ask – what exactly is it universities are paying for?

Library

,