Scholarly publishing: in pursuit of knowledge or profit?
This past April, the Dutch scholarly publishing giant — Elsevier — signed a two-year open access (OA) “publish-and-read” pilot agreement with the seven Norwegian universities and 39 research institutions (a.k.a. Unit). With the help of a fixed fee that amounts to €9 million, Norwegian academics will publish around 2,000 articles per year in most of Elsevier’s journals (Nilsson, 2019). This has come as a surprise to those of us that have been following the scholarly publishing vs. OA debate. Especially considering that just a few months before signing the new deal, Norway opted out of their contract with Elsevier, “which was far from fulfilling the requirements of Norway for open access” (Resnick and Belluz, 2019; McKenzie, 2019). So, why did Norway get back with Elsevier so shortly after the “break-up”? What does Elsevier have that the other (scholarly) fish in the sea don’t?
Fifty shades of scholarly publishing
Other countries and institutions, however, don’t like Elsevier’s clout over the academic market. “They’re a monopolist, and they act like a monopolist”, according to Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, the head of the campus libraries at UC Berkeley. This is precisely the reason why University of California terminated the subscription to Elsevier’s journals, taking nearly $11 million away from them in the process. Germany and Sweden fought back too, stating that “the current system for scholarly communication must change, and our only option is to cancel deals when they don’t meet our demands for a sustainable transition to open access” (Yeager, 2018). Nevertheless, Elsevier is still happily cruising around, especially since they will now get 3% more for journal access from Norway compared with their previous agreement.
Despite significant backlash over the years for being too profit-driven, Elsevier saw a 2% revenue growth in 2018 (Page, 2019). They also achieve profit margins of over 30% year on year (Richards, 2019). But how can they be such a big fish in a rather small pond of academic publishers? Well, they keep science behind paywalls; more often than not it’s at the expense of university budgets because of the contract-pricing specifics, which Elsevier forces upon them (Schmitt, 2019). So, with inelastic demand and almost non-existent competition in the market, Elsevier’s almost like the oil industry in Norway — with journals and research articles as their oil (Smith, 2018). Maybe that’s why they’re a good match?
Rebalancing of power or being a cash cow
The dramatic U-turn with Norway creates an illusion of no-brinkmanship at Elsevier, which is certainly not what they’re known for.
“[The deal offers] fair value to both sides so that the quality, integrity and sustainability of the peer review publishing system can be preserved”, says Gino Ussi, the executive vice president of Elsevier (Mehta, 2019).
Is the age of the ‘Maxwellian’ business model (Buranyi, 2019) at Elsevier coming to an end? Are they finally ready to put the profit aside and focus on executing the original mission of scholarly publishing through open access publications?
A draft agreement between Elsevier and France suggests that the Elsevier-Norway deal isn’t the new way of doing things at the company. The draft shows that Elsevier is planning on sticking with their subscription model and processing charges. The minuscule shift towards OA at Elsevier could potentially be caused by the pressure from competitors. With a plethora of boycotts and initiatives, for instance Plan S, and losing out on enormous subscription fees from several institutions, the OA shift within academic publishing had put them in a dicey situation.
Perhaps this was a strategic move to hold onto the dregs of their reputation while they make a significant shift of their own.
Bibliography
Buranyi, S. (2017) 'Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?', The Guardian, 27 June. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science (Accessed: 18.10.2019)
Elsevier (2019) The big (data) deal in scholarly publishing. Available at: https://www.elsevier.com/connect/the-big-data-deal-in-scholarly-publishing (Accessed: 18.10.2019)
Nilsson, P. (2019) 'Elsevier in €9m Norwegian deal to end paywalls for academic papers', Financial Times, 23 March. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/30ceaafc-6441-11e9-9adc-98bf1d35a056 (Accessed: 18.10.2019)
Schmitt, J. (2019) 'Paywalls block scientific progress. Research should be open to everyone', The Guardian, 28 March. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/mar/28/paywalls-block-scientific-progress-research-should-be-open-to-everyone (Accessed: 18.10.2019)
McKenzie, L. (2019) An Elsevier Pivot to Open Access. Available at: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/24/elsevier-agrees-first-read-and-publish-deal (Accessed: 18.10.2019)
Mehta, A. (2019) Elsevier sign its first ever 'read and publish' open access deal with Norway. Available at: https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/elsevier-signs-its-first-ever-read-and-publish-open-access-deal-with-norway/3010435.article (Accessed: 20.10.2019)
Page, B. (2019) Elsevier records 2% lifts in revenue and profits. Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/news/elsevier-records-2-lifts-revenue-and-profits-960016 (Accessed: 18.10.2019)
Resnick, B. & Belluz, J. (2019) The war to free science — How librarians, pirates, and funders are liberating the world’s academic research from paywalls. Available at: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/3/18271538/open-access-elsevier-california-sci-hub-academic-paywalls (Accessed: 18.10.2019)
Richards, E. (2019) When collaborations go bad: Why the Elsevier boycott is a lesson in compromise. Available at: https://u2b.com/2019/05/20/when-collaborations-go-bad-why-the-elsevier-boycott-is-a-lesson-in-compromise/ (Accessed: 18.10.2019)
Smith, R. (2019) Richard Smith: A Big Brother future for science publishing? Available at: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2018/01/10/richard-smith-a-big-brother-future-for-science-publishing/ (Accessed: 18.10.2019)
