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Mark Post is a man on a mission. The environmental damage caused by livestock farming is far too great and must be dramatically reduced. His contribution? Cultured meat. These days, he’s not just a scientist, but also the director of Mosa Meat, a business that has drawn 75 million Euros in investments. And no, he’s not a vegetarian.

International Open Access Week 2021 will take place from 25-31 October. This year we are paying extra attention to new developments, services and tips. We are launching a new OA Journal Browser, a preprint guide, and organising drop-in sessions. But there's more. Read on and discover seven ways to celebrate Open Access Week 2021 with us.

The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), the Dutch Federation of University Medical Centers (NFU), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and Elsevier announced that they have entered into a national agreement. Maastricht University and MUMC+ participate in this contract that runs until  2025.

VSNU, NFU, NWO and Elsevier have reached a framework agreement. In the short term, this means that from January 2020 we will have access to all online journals from Elsevier and UM scholars can publish Open Access in all Elsevier journals – Full OA and Hybrid – without paying APC.

Maastricht University and MUMC+ students and staff can access the articles of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journals again. The current subscription runs until 2021.

Elsevier has expanded the number of journal titles in which researchers from Maastricht University and MUMC+ can publish open access ‘for free’ to 1650 hybrid titles. Researchers can now also publish in 250 open access journals without paying APC.

The Dutch scholarly publications portal NARCIS now presents more than 700,000 open access publications by Dutch academics. Maastricht University counts for 15,228 open access publications.

The University Library recently launched a new tool for researchers: the Similarity Check Service. This tool helps researchers to prevent sloppy referencing or plagiarism.

In late 2018, when the ‘current’ contract with Elsevier ended, VSNU and Elsevier agreed to continue the talks on a new contract while the existing agreements were maintained. Now the current contract will be extended for an additional six months to allow more time for the negotiations.

Micah Vandegrift lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina. He visited Maastricht University Library as a Fulbright-Schuman innovation fellow and stayed with us for 5 months between October 2018 and February 2019. His wife and two young children accompanied him to Maastricht and beyond.