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Elsevier () is a Dutch
academic publishing Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publ ...
company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...
'', ''
Cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
'', the
ScienceDirect ScienceDirect is a website which provides access to a large bibliographic database of scientific and medical publications of the Dutch publisher Elsevier. It hosts over 18 million pieces of content from more than 4,000 academic journals and 30,0 ...
collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', the '' Current Opinion'' series, the online citation database
Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...
, the SciVal tool for measuring research performance, the ClinicalKey search engine for clinicians, and the ClinicalPath evidence-based cancer care service. Elsevier's products and services also include digital tools for data management, instruction, research analytics and assessment. Elsevier is part of the
RELX Group RELX plc (pronounced "Rel-ex") is a British multinational information and analytics company headquartered in London, England. Its businesses provide scientific, technical and medical information and analytics; legal information and analytics; ...
(known until 2015 as Reed Elsevier), a publicly traded company. According to RELX reports, in 2021 Elsevier published more than 600,000 articles annually in over 2,700 journals; as of 2018 its archives contained over 17 million documents and 40,000 e-books, with over one billion annual downloads. Researchers have criticized Elsevier for its high profit margins and copyright practices. The company earned £942 million in profit with an adjusted
operating margin In business, operating margin—also known as operating income margin, operating profit margin, EBIT margin and return on sales (ROS)—is the ratio of operating income ("operating profit" in the UK) to net sales, usually expressed in percent. : ...
of 37% in 2018. Much of the research that Elsevier publishes is publicly funded; its high costs have led to accusations of
rent-seeking Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth without creating new wealth by manipulating the social or political environment. Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic effi ...
, boycotts, and the rise of alternate avenues for publication and access, such as
preprint In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset versio ...
servers and
shadow libraries A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two-dimensional silhouette, ...
.


History

Elsevier was founded in 1880 and adopted the name and logo from the Dutch publishing house Elzevir that was an inspiration and has no connection to the contemporary Elsevier. The Elzevir family operated as booksellers and publishers in the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
; the founder,
Lodewijk Elzevir Lodewijk Elzevir (c. 1540, Leuven – 4 February 1617, Leiden), originally ''Lodewijk or Louis Elsevier or Elzevier'', was a printer, born in the city of Leuven (today in Belgium, then part of the Habsburg Netherlands or Spanish Netherlands). He wa ...
(1542–1617), lived in
Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
and established that business in 1580. As a company logo, Elsevier used the Elzevir family's
printer's mark A printer's mark, device, emblem or insignia is a symbol that was used as a trademark by early printers starting in the 15th century. The first printer's mark is found in the 1457 Mainz Psalter by Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer. One of the mos ...
, a tree entwined with a vine and the words ''Non Solus'', which is
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
for "not alone". According to Elsevier, this logo represents "the symbiotic relationship between publisher and scholar". The expansion of Elsevier in the scientific field after 1945 was funded with the profits of the newsweekly ''
Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...
'', which published its first issue on 27 October 1945. The weekly was an instant success and very profitable. The weekly was a continuation, as is stated in its first issue, of the monthly ''Elsevier'', which was founded in 1891 to promote the name of the publishing house and had to stop publication in December 1940 because of the
German occupation of the Netherlands Despite Dutch neutrality, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as part of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family re ...
. In May 1939 Klautz established the Elsevier Publishing Company Ltd. in London to distribute these academic titles in the
British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...
(except Canada). When the Nazis occupied the Netherlands for the duration of five years from May 1940, he had just founded a second international office, the Elsevier Publishing Company Inc. in
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
. In 1947, Elsevier began publishing its first English-language journal, '' Biochimica et Biophysica Acta''. In 1971 the firm acquired
Excerpta Medica Excerpta (Latin for "excerpts") may refer to: *''Excerpta Barocciana'', extracts from Late Antique church historians found in Codex Baroccianus 142 *''Excerpta Constantiniana'', 53-volume Greek anthology of excerpts from historians *''Excerpta Lati ...
, a small medical abstract publisher based in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
. As the first and only company in the world that employed a database for the production of journals, it introduced computer technology to Elsevier. In 1978 Elsevier merged with Dutch newspaper publisher NDU, and devised a strategy to broadcast textual news to people's television sets through
Viewdata Viewdata is a Videotex implementation. It is a type of information retrieval service in which a subscriber can access a remote database via a common carrier channel, request data and receive requested data on a video display over a separate c ...
and
Teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
technology. In 1979 Elsevier Science Publishers launched the Article Delivery Over Network Information System (ADONIS) project in conjunction with four business partners. The project aims to find a way to deliver scientific articles to libraries electronically, and would continue for over a decade. In 1991, in conjunction with nine American universities, Elsevier's The University Licensing Project (TULIP) was the first step in creating published, copyrighted material available over the Internet. It formed the basis for
ScienceDirect ScienceDirect is a website which provides access to a large bibliographic database of scientific and medical publications of the Dutch publisher Elsevier. It hosts over 18 million pieces of content from more than 4,000 academic journals and 30,0 ...
, launched six years later. In 1997, after almost two decades of experiments, ScienceDirect is launched as the first online repository of electronic (scientific) books and articles. Though librarians and researchers were initially hesitant regarding the new technology, more and more of them switched to e-only subscriptions. In 2004,
Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...
was launched. The abstract database covers journals and books from various publishers, and measures performance on both author and publication levels. In 2009 SciVal Spotlight was released. This tool enabled research administrators to measure their institution's relative standing in terms of productivity, grants, and publications . In 2013, Elsevier acquired
Mendeley Mendeley is a reference manager software developed by Elsevier. It is used to manage and share research papers and generate bibliographies for scholarly articles. History The company Mendeley, named after the biologist Gregor Mendel and chemist D ...
, a UK company making software for managing and sharing research papers. Mendeley, previously an open platform for sharing of research, was greatly criticized for the sale, which users saw as acceding to the "
paywall A paywall is a method of restricting access to content, with a purchase or a paid subscription, especially news. Beginning in the mid-2010s, newspapers started implementing paywalls on their websites as a way to increase revenue after years of ...
" approach to research literature. Mendeley's previously open-sharing system now allows exchange of paywalled resources only within private groups. ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' described Elsevier's reasons for buying Mendeley as two-fold: to acquire its user data, and to "destroy or coöpt an open-science icon that threatens its
business model A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-published, 2010 in economic, social, ...
".


Company statistics

, researchers submitted over 1.8 million
research papers Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publ ...
to Elsevier-based publications. Over 20,000 editors managed the peer review and selection of these papers, resulting in the publication of more than 470,000 articles in over 2,500 journals. Editors are generally unpaid volunteers who perform their duties alongside a full-time job in academic institutions, although exceptions have been reported. In 2013, the five editorial groups Elsevier,
Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...
,
Wiley-Blackwell Wiley-Blackwell is an international scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly publishing business of John Wiley & Sons. It was formed by the merger of John Wiley & Sons Global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business with Blackwell Publish ...
,
Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 (publisher), F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa ...
, and
SAGE Publications SAGE Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American independent publishing company founded in 1965 in New York by Sara Miller McCune and now based in Newbury Park, California. It publishes more than 1,000 journals, more than 800 books ...
published more than half of all academic papers in the peer-reviewed literature. At that time, Elsevier accounted for 16% of the world market in science, technology, and medical publishing. In 2019, Elsevier accounted for the review, editing and dissemination 18% of the world's scientific articles. About 45% of revenue by geography in 2019 derived from North America, 24% from Europe, and the remaining 31% from the rest of the world. Around 84% of revenue by format came from electronic usage and 16% came from print. The firm employs 8,100 people. The CEO is Kumsal Bayazit, who was appointed on 15 February 2019. In 2018, it reported a mean 2017
gender pay gap The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally found to be paid less than men. There are two distinct numbers regarding the pay gap: non-adjusted ...
of 29.1% for its UK workforce, while the median was 40.4%, the highest yet reported by a publisher in UK. Elsevier attributed the result to the under-representation of women in its senior ranks and the prevalence of men in its technical workforce. The UK workforce consists of 1,200 people in the UK, and represents 16% of Elsevier's global employee population. Elsevier's parent company, RELX, has a global workforce that is 51% female to 49% male, with 43% female and 57% male managers, and 29% female and 71% male senior operational managers. In 2018, Elsevier accounted for 34% of the revenues of RELX group (£2.538 billion of £7.492 billion). In operating profits, it represented 40% (£942 million of £2,346 million). Adjusted operating profits (with constant currency) rose by 2% from 2017 to 2018. Profits grew further from 2018 to 2019, to a total of £982 million. the first half of 2019, RELX reported the first slowdown in revenue growth for Elsevier in several years: 1% vs. an expectation of 2% and a typical growth of at least 4% in the previous 5 years. Overall for 2019, Elsevier reported revenue growth of 3.9% from 2018, with the underlying growth at constant currency at 2%. In 2019, Elsevier accounted for 34% of the revenues of RELX (£2.637billion of £7.874billion). In adjusted operating profits, it represented 39% (£982m of £2.491bn). Adjusted operating profits (with constant currency) rose by 2% from 2018 to 2019. In 2019, researchers submitted over two million
research papers Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publ ...
to Elsevier-based publications. Over 22,000 editors managed the peer review and selection of these papers, resulting in the publication of about 500,000 articles in over 2,500 journals. In 2020 Elsevier was the largest academic publisher, with approximately 16 % of the academic publishing market and more than 3000 journals."


Market model


Products and services

Products and services include electronic and print versions of journals, textbooks and
reference work A reference work is a work, such as a paper, book or periodical (or their electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually ''referred'' to f ...
s, and cover the
health Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
, life, physical, and
social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...
s. The target markets are academic and government research institutions, corporate research labs, booksellers, librarians, scientific researchers, authors, editors, physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, medical and nursing students and schools, medical researchers,
pharmaceutical companies The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate symptoms. ...
, hospitals, and research establishments. It publishes in 13 languages including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese, Hindi, and Chinese. Flagship products and services include VirtualE,
ScienceDirect ScienceDirect is a website which provides access to a large bibliographic database of scientific and medical publications of the Dutch publisher Elsevier. It hosts over 18 million pieces of content from more than 4,000 academic journals and 30,0 ...
,
Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...
,
Scirus Scirus was a comprehensive science-specific search engine, first launched in 2001. Like CiteSeerX and Google Scholar, it was focused on scientific information. Unlike CiteSeerX, Scirus was not only for computer sciences and IT and not all of the ...
, EMBASE, Engineering Village,
Compendex Ei Compendex is an engineering bibliographic database published by Elsevier. The name "Compendex" stands for COMPuterized ENgineering inDEX. It covers scientific literature pertaining to engineering materials. It started in 1884 under the name ...
,
Cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery ...
, Knovel, SciVal, Pure, and Analytical Services, The Consult series (FirstCONSULT, PathCONSULT, NursingCONSULT, MDConsult, StudentCONSULT), Virtual Clinical Excursions, and major reference works such as ''
Gray's Anatomy ''Gray's Anatomy'' is a reference book of human anatomy written by Henry Gray, illustrated by Henry Vandyke Carter, and first published in London in 1858. It has gone through multiple revised editions and the current edition, the 42nd (Octob ...
'', ''Nelson Pediatrics'', ''
Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary ''Dorland's'' is the brand name of a family of medical reference works (including dictionaries, spellers and word books, and spell-check software) in various media spanning printed books, CD-ROMs, and online content. The flagship products are ''Do ...
'', '' Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy'', and online versions of many journals including ''
The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823. The journal publishes original research articles, ...
''. ScienceDirect is Elsevier's platform for online electronic access to its journals and over 40,000 e-books, reference works, book series, and handbooks. The articles are grouped in four main sections: ''Physical Sciences and Engineering'', ''Life Sciences'', ''Health Sciences'', and ''Social Sciences and Humanities''. For most articles on the website, abstracts are freely available; access to the full text of the article (in PDF, and also HTML for newer publications) often requires a subscription or pay-per-view purchase. In 2019, Elsevier published 49,000
gratis open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or Gratis v ...
articles and 370 full open access journals. Moreover, 1,900 of its journals sold hybrid open access options.


Pricing

The subscription rates charged by the company for its journals have been criticized; some very large journals (with more than 5,000 articles) charge subscription prices as high as £9,634, far above average, and many British universities pay more than a million pounds to Elsevier annually. The company has been criticized not only by advocates of a switch to the
open-access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
publication model, but also by universities whose library budgets make it difficult for them to afford current journal prices. For example, in 2004, a resolution by
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
's senate singled out Elsevier's journals as being "disproportionately expensive compared to their educational and research value", which librarians should consider dropping, and encouraged its faculty "not to contribute articles or editorial or review efforts to publishers and journals that engage in exploitive or exorbitant pricing". Similar guidelines and criticism of Elsevier's pricing policies have been passed by the
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
,
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, and
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
. In July 2015, the
Association of Universities in the Netherlands The Universiteiten van Nederland (UNL) is, since November 2021, the new name of the Vereniging van Universiteiten (VSNU; English: Association of Universities in the Netherlands). The UNL is a trade group of ten government-funded universities, three ...
announced a plan to start boycotting Elsevier, which refused to negotiate on any
open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
policy for Dutch universities. In October 2018, a complaint against Elsevier was filed with the European Commission, alleging anticompetitive practices stemming from Elsevier's confidential subscription agreements and market dominance. The European Commission decided not to investigate. The elevated pricing of field journals in economics, most of which are published by Elsevier, was one of the motivations that moved the
American Economic Association The American Economic Association (AEA) is a learned society in the field of economics. It publishes several peer-reviewed journals acknowledged in business and academia. There are some 23,000 members. History and Constitution The AEA was esta ...
to launch the ''
American Economic Journal The ''American Economic Journal'' is a group of four peer-reviewed academic journals published by the American Economic Association. The names of the individual journals consist of the prefix ''American Economic Journal'' with a descriptor of the f ...
'' in 2009.


Mergers and acquisitions

RELX Group has been
active Active may refer to: Music * ''Active'' (album), a 1992 album by Casiopea * Active Records, a record label Ships * ''Active'' (ship), several commercial ships by that name * HMS ''Active'', the name of various ships of the British Royal ...
in
mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
. Elsevier has incorporated other businesses that were either complementing or competing in the field of research and publishing and that reinforce its
market power In economics, market power refers to the ability of a firm to influence the price at which it sells a product or service by manipulating either the supply or demand of the product or service to increase economic profit. In other words, market powe ...
, such as
Mendeley Mendeley is a reference manager software developed by Elsevier. It is used to manage and share research papers and generate bibliographies for scholarly articles. History The company Mendeley, named after the biologist Gregor Mendel and chemist D ...
(after the closure of 2collab),
SSRN The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a repository for preprints devoted to the rapid dissemination of scholarly research in the social sciences, humanities, life sciences, and health sciences, among others. Elsevier bought SSRN from So ...
,
bepress Bepress is a commercial, academic software firm owned by RELX Group. It began in 1999 as the Berkeley Electronic Press, co-founded by academics Robert Cooter and Aaron Edlin. It makes products and services to support scholarly communication, in ...
/
Digital Commons Digital Commons is a commercial, hosted institutional repository platform owned by RELX Group. This hosted service, licensed by bepress, is used by over 500 academic institutions, healthcare centers, public libraries, and research centers to sho ...
,
PlumX Plum Analytics is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based altmetrics company dedicated to measuring the influence of scientific research. History It was founded in 2011 by Andrea Michalek, who is its current president, and Mike Buschman. It was acqui ...
, Hivebench, Newsflo, Science-Metrix, and Interfolio.


Conferences

Elsevier also conducts conferences, exhibitions, and workshops around the world, with over 50 conferences a year covering life sciences, physical sciences and engineering, social sciences, and health sciences.


Shill review offer

According to the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, in 2009, the firm lsevieroffered a £17.25 Amazon voucher to academics who contributed to the textbook ''Clinical Psychology'' if they would go on
Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
and
Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller. It is a Fortune 1000 company and the bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. As of July 7, 2020, the company operates 614 retail stores across all 50 U. ...
(a large US books retailer) and give it five stars. Elsevier responded by stating "Encouraging interested parties to post book reviews isn't outside the norm in scholarly publishing, nor is it wrong to offer to nominally compensate people for their time. But in all instances the request should be unbiased, with no incentives for a positive review, and that's where this particular e-mail went too far", and that it was a mistake by a marketing employee.


Blocking text mining research

Elsevier seeks to regulate
text and data mining Text may refer to: Written word * Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including: **Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred **Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
with private licenses, claiming that reading requires extra permission if automated and that the publisher holds copyright on output of automated processes. The conflict on research and copyright policy has often resulted in researchers being blocked from their work. In November 2015, Elsevier blocked a scientist from performing
text mining Text mining, also referred to as ''text data mining'', similar to text analytics, is the process of deriving high-quality information from text. It involves "the discovery by computer of new, previously unknown information, by automatically extract ...
research at scale on Elsevier papers, even though his institution already pays for access to Elsevier journal content. The data was collected using the R package "statcheck".


Fossil fuel company consulting and advocacy

Elsevier is one of the most prolific publishers of books aimed at expanding the production of fossil fuels. Since at least 2010 the company has worked with the fossil fuel industry to optimise fossil fuel extraction. It commissions authors, journal advisory board members and editors who are employees of the largest oil firms. In addition it markets data services and research portals directly to the fossil fuel industry to help “increase the odds of exploration success”.


Academic practices


"Who's Afraid of Peer Review"

In 2013, one of Elsevier's journals was caught in the sting set up by
John Bohannon John Bohannon is an American science journalist and scientist who is Director of Science at Primer, an artificial intelligence company headquartered in San Francisco, California. He is known for his career prior to Primer as a science journalist a ...
, published in ''Science'', called "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?" The journal ''Drug Invention Today'' accepted an obviously bogus paper made up by Bohannon that should have been rejected by any good peer-review system. Instead, ''Drug Invention Today'' was among many open-access journals that accepted the fake paper for publication. As of 2014, this journal had been transferred to a different publisher.


Fake journals

At a 2009 court case in Australia where Merck & Co. was being sued by a user of
Vioxx Rofecoxib is a COX-2 selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). It was marketed by Merck & Co. to treat osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, acute pain conditions, migraine, and dysmenorrhea. Rofecoxib ...
, the plaintiff alleged that Merck had paid Elsevier to publish the ''
Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine The ''Australasian Journal of Bone & Joint Medicine'' (originally titled the ''Australasian Journal of Musculoskeletal Medicine'') was a periodical presented in the style of a scientific journal, published by Elsevier but established and funded by ...
'', which had the appearance of being a peer-reviewed
academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
but in fact contained only articles favourable to Merck drugs. Merck described the journal as a "complimentary publication," denied claims that articles within it were
ghost written A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often h ...
by Merck, and stated that the articles were all reprinted from peer-reviewed medical journals. In May 2009, Elsevier Health Sciences CEO Hansen released a statement regarding Australia-based sponsored journals, conceding that they were "sponsored article compilation publications, on behalf of pharmaceutical clients, that were made to look like journals and lacked the proper disclosures." The statement acknowledged that it "was an unacceptable practice." '' The Scientist'' reported that, according to an Elsevier spokesperson, six sponsored publications "were put out by their Australia office and bore the
Excerpta Medica Excerpta (Latin for "excerpts") may refer to: *''Excerpta Barocciana'', extracts from Late Antique church historians found in Codex Baroccianus 142 *''Excerpta Constantiniana'', 53-volume Greek anthology of excerpts from historians *''Excerpta Lati ...
imprint from 2000 to 2005," namely the ''Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine'' (''Australas. J. Bone Joint Med.''), the ''Australasian Journal of General Practice'' (''Australas. J. Gen. Pract.''), the ''Australasian Journal of Neurology'' (''Australas. J. Neurol.''), the ''Australasian Journal of Cardiology'' (''Australas. J. Cardiol.''), the ''Australasian Journal of Clinical Pharmacy'' (''Australas. J. Clin. Pharm.''), and the ''Australasian Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine'' (''Australas. J. Cardiovasc. Med.''). Excerpta Medica was a "strategic medical communications agency" run by Elsevier, according to the imprint's web page. In October 2010, Excerpta Medica was acquired by Adelphi Worldwide.


''Chaos, Solitons & Fractals''

There was speculation that the editor-in-chief of Elsevier journal ''Chaos, Solitons & Fractals'',
Mohamed El Naschie Mohamed El Naschie ( ar, محمد النشائي, born 1943) is an Egyptian engineer and the former editor of a controversial journal, '' Chaos, Solitons & Fractals''. The controversy concerned El Naschie's publication, over many years, of over 300 ...
, misused his power to publish his own work without appropriate peer review. The journal had published 322 papers with El Naschie as author since 1993. The last issue of December 2008 featured five of his papers. The controversy was covered extensively in blogs. The publisher announced in January 2009 that El Naschie had retired as editor-in-chief. the co-Editors-in-Chief of the journal were Maurice Courbage and Paolo Grigolini. In June 2011, El Naschie sued the journal ''
Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
'' for libel, claiming that his reputation had been damaged by their November 2008 article about his retirement, which included statements that ''Nature'' had been unable to verify his claimed affiliations with certain international institutions. The suit came to trial in November 2011 and was dismissed in July 2012, with the judge ruling that the article was "substantially true", contained "honest comment", and was "the product of responsible journalism". The judgement noted that El Naschie, who represented himself in court, had failed to provide any documentary evidence that his papers had been peer-reviewed."Nature libel verdict 'a victory for free speech'"
''The Guardian'' 6 July 2012 Judge
Victoria Sharp Dame Victoria Madeleine Sharp, , PC (born 8 February 1956) is the President of the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in England and Wales. Early life She is the daughter of Lord Sharp of Grimsdyke. Her twin brother is Rich ...
also found "reasonable and serious grounds" for suspecting that El Naschie used a range of false names to defend his editorial practice in communications with ''Nature'', and described this behavior as "curious" and "bizarre".


Plagiarism

Elsevier's 'Duties of Authors' states that authors should ensure they have written entirely original works, and that proper acknowledgement of other's work must always be given. Elsevier claims plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical behaviour. Some Elsevier journals automatically screen submissions for plagiarism, but not all. Albanian politician, Taulant Muka claimed that Elsevier journal ''
Procedia ''Procedia'' is an open access journal series published by Elsevier. The purpose of ''Procedia'' is to publish, for a fee, "proposed conference proceedings" in a "dedicated online issue". Elsevier advertises this product as having a focus on del ...
'' had plagiarized in the abstract of one of its articles. It is unclear whether or not Muka had access to the entirety of the article.


Scientific racism

Angela Saini Angela Saini (born in London, 1980) is a British science journalist, broadcaster and the author of books, of which the fourth, ''The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality'', was published in 2023. Saini has worked as a reporter and presenter fo ...
has criticized the two Elsevier journals ''
Intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...
'' and ''
Personality and Individual Differences ''Personality and Individual Differences'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published 16 times per year by Elsevier. It was established in 1980 by Pergamon Press and is the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Individu ...
'' for having included on their editorial boards such well-known proponents of
scientific racism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
as
Richard Lynn Richard Lynn (born 20 February 1930) is a controversial English psychologist and author. He is a former professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, having had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018. He is former assistant edit ...
and
Gerhard Meisenberg Gerhard Meisenberg (January 22, 1953) is a German biochemist. As of 2018, he was a professor of physiology and biochemistry at Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica.As of July 2018, Meisenberg was listed as faculty one Ross University's ...
; in response to her inquiries, Elsevier defended their presence as editors. The journal ''Intelligence'' has been criticized for having "occasionally included papers with pseudoscientific findings about intelligence differences between races." It is the official journal of the
International Society for Intelligence Research The International Society for Intelligence Research (ISIR) is a scientific society for researchers in human intelligence. It was founded by Douglas K. Detterman of Case Western Reserve University in 2000. The society advocates for ongoing suppo ...
, which organizes the controversial series of conferences
London Conference on Intelligence The London Conference on Intelligence (LCI) is an invitation-only conference for research on human intelligence, including race and intelligence and eugenics. In 2018, ''Times Higher Education'' called it "an annual conference on eugenics and inte ...
, described by the ''New Statesman'' as a forum for scientific racism. In response to a 2019 open letter, efforts by
Retraction Watch Retraction Watch is a blog that reports on retractions of scientific papers and on related topics. The blog was launched in August 2010 and is produced by science writers Ivan Oransky (Former Vice President, Editorial ''Medscape'') and Adam Mar ...
and a petition signed by over 1000 people, on 17 June 2020 Elsevier announced it was retracting an article that
J. Philippe Rushton John Philippe Rushton (December 3, 1943 – October 2, 2012) was a Canadian psychologist and author. He taught at the University of Western Ontario until the early 1990s, and became known to the general public during the 1980s and 1990s for resea ...
and
Donald Templer Donald I. Templer was an American psychologist best known for ideas on race and intelligence, and his association with the white nationalist group American Renaissance (magazine), American Renaissance. He was formerly a professor of psychology at A ...
published in 2012 in the Elsevier journal ''Personality and Individual Differences''. The article had claimed that there was scientific evidence that skin color was related to aggression and sexuality in humans. One of their Journals, ''Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis'', was involved in the manipulation of the peer review report.


Manipulation of bibliometrics

According to the signatories of the
San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) intends to halt the practice of correlating the journal impact factor to the merits of a specific scientist's contributions. Also according to this statement, this practice creates bias ...
(see also Goodhart's law), commercial academic publishers benefit from manipulation of
bibliometrics Bibliometrics is the use of statistical methods to analyse books, articles and other publications, especially in regard with scientific contents. Bibliometric methods are frequently used in the field of library and information science. Biblio ...
and
scientometrics Scientometrics is the field of study which concerns itself with measuring and analysing scholarly literature. Scientometrics is a sub-field of informetrics. Major research issues include the measurement of the impact of research papers and academi ...
, such as the
journal impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as in ...
. The impact factor, which is often used as a
proxy Proxy may refer to: * Proxy or agent (law), a substitute authorized to act for another entity or a document which authorizes the agent so to act * Proxy (climate), a measured variable used to infer the value of a variable of interest in climate ...
of
prestige Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...
, can influence revenues, subscriptions, and academics' willingness to contribute unpaid work. However, there's evidence suggesting that reliability of published research works in several fields may ''decrease'' with increasing journal rank. Nine Elsevier journals, which exhibited unusual levels of
self-citation Coercive citation is an academic publishing practice in which an editor of a scientific or academic journal forces an author to add spurious citations to an article before the journal will agree to publish it. This is done to inflate the journal' ...
, had their
journal impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as in ...
of 2019 suspended from ''
Journal Citation Reports ''Journal Citation Reports'' (''JCR'') is an annual publicationby Clarivate Analytics (previously the intellectual property of Thomson Reuters). It has been integrated with the Web of Science and is accessed from the Web of Science-Core Collect ...
'' in 2020, a sanction which hit 34 journals in total.


Control of journals


Resignation of editorial boards

In November 1999, the entire editorial board (50 persons) of the ''
Journal of Logic Programming The ''Journal of Logical and Algebraic Methods in Programming'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal established in 1984. It was originally titled ''The Journal of Logic Programming''; in 2001 it was renamed ''The Journal of Logic and Algebraic ...
'' (founded in 1984 by Alan Robinson) collectively resigned after 16 months of unsuccessful negotiations with Elsevier Press about the price of library subscriptions.
Joan Birman Joan Sylvia Lyttle Birman (born May 30, 1927, in New York CityLarry Riddle., ''Biographies of Women Mathematicians'', at Agnes Scott College) is an American mathematician, specializing in low-dimensional topology. She has made contributions to t ...
.
Scientific publishing: a mathematician’s viewpoint
. ''
Notices of the AMS ''Notices of the American Mathematical Society'' is the membership journal of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), published monthly except for the combined June/July issue. The first volume appeared in 1953. Each issue of the magazine since ...
''. Vol. 47, No. 7, August 2000 The personnel created a new journal, ''Theory and Practice of Logic Programming'', with
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
at a much lower price, while Elsevier continued publication with a new editorial board and a slightly different name (the ''
Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming The ''Journal of Logical and Algebraic Methods in Programming'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal established in 1984. It was originally titled ''The Journal of Logic Programming''; in 2001 it was renamed ''The Journal of Logic and Algebraic ...
''). In 2002, dissatisfaction at Elsevier's pricing policies caused the
European Economic Association The European Economic Association (EEA) is a professional academic body which links European economists. It was founded in the mid-1980s. Its first annual congress was in 1986 in Vienna and its first president was Jacques Drèze. The current pres ...
to terminate an agreement with Elsevier designating Elsevier's ''
European Economic Review The ''European Economic Review'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers research in economics. The journal was established in 1969 and the five main editors are: Florin Bilbiie, (University of Lausanne); David K. Levine, (European Universi ...
'' as the official journal of the association. The EEA launched a new journal, the ''
Journal of the European Economic Association The ''Journal of the European Economic Association'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of economics. It was established in 2003 and is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the European Economic Association. The current m ...
''. In 2003, the entire editorial board of the ''Journal of Algorithms'' resigned to start ''
ACM Transactions on Algorithms ''ACM Transactions on Algorithms'' (''TALG'') is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the field of algorithms. It was established in 2005 and is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. The editor-in-chief is Edith Co ...
'' with a different, lower-priced, not-for-profit publisher, at the suggestion of ''Journal of Algorithms'' founder
Donald Knuth Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer sc ...
. The ''Journal of Algorithms'' continued under Elsevier with a new editorial board until October 2009, when it was discontinued. The same happened in 2005 to the ''International Journal of Solids and Structures'', whose editors resigned to start the ''
Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures ''The Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research on the mechanics of materials and deformable structures of all types. It was established by Charles R. Steele, who was also the first ...
''. However, a new editorial board was quickly established and the journal continues in apparently unaltered form with editors D.A. Hills (
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
) and Stelios Kyriakides (
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
). In August 2006, the entire editorial board of the distinguished
mathematical journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...
''
Topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...
'' handed in their resignations, again because of stalled negotiations with Elsevier to lower the subscription price. This board then launched the new ''
Journal of Topology The ''Journal of Topology'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal which publishes papers of high quality and significance in topology, geometry, and adjacent areas of mathematics. It was established in 2008, when the Editorial Board of ''Topology'' ...
'' at a far lower price, under the auspices of the
London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh Mathematical S ...
. After this mass resignation, ''Topology'' remained in circulation under a new editorial board until 2009, when the last issue was published. In May 2015, Stephen Leeder was removed from his role as editor of the ''
Medical Journal of Australia The ''Medical Journal of Australia'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal published 22 times a year. It is the official journal of the Australian Medical Association, published by Wiley on behalf of the Australasian Medical Publishing Company. The ...
'' when its publisher decided to outsource the journal's production to Elsevier. As a consequence, all but one of the journal's editorial advisory committee members co-signed a letter of resignation. In October 2015, the entire editorial staff of the
general linguistics Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics which, like the related term general linguistics, can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to theory of language, or the branch of linguistics which inquires into the n ...
journal ''
Lingua Lingua (Latin, 'tongue') may refer to: * ''Lingua'' (journal), a peer-reviewed academic journal of general linguistics * ''Lingua'' (sculpture), by Jim Sanborn * ''Lingua'' (play), a 17th-century play attributed to Thomas Tomkis * Project Ling ...
'' resigned in protest of Elsevier's unwillingness to agree to their terms of Fair Open Access. Editor-in-chief Johan Rooryck also announced that the ''Lingua'' staff would establish a new journal, '' Glossa''. In January 2019, the entire editorial board of Elsevier's '' Journal of Informetrics'' resigned over the open-access policies of its publisher and founded open-access journal called ''Quantitative Science Studies''. In March 2020, Elsevier effectively severed the tie between the ''
Journal of Asian Economics The ''Journal of Asian Economics'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal focused on the economy of Asia. It was established in 1990 by the American Committee on Asian Economic Studies, and was published on the Committee's behalf by Elsevi ...
'' and the academic society that founded it, the American Committee on Asian Economic Studies (ACAES), by offering the ACAES-appointed editor, Calla Wiemer, a terminal contract for 2020. A diverse group of 43 academic stakeholders, including editorial board members, ACAES Advisory Council members, and authors, petitioned Elsevier in support of a three-year renewable contract for the editor. Elsevier nonetheless stood by its offer, which the editor declined to accept. A majority of the editorial board members refused invitations from Elsevier to continue with the post-ACAES journal and remain on the executive board of ACAES.


"The Cost of Knowledge" boycott

In 2003, various university librarians began coordinating with each other to complain about Elsevier's " big deal" journal bundling packages, in which the company offered a group of journal subscriptions to libraries at a certain rate, but in which librarians claimed no economical option was available to subscribe to only the popular journals at a rate comparable to the bundled rate. Librarians continued to discuss the implications of the pricing schemes, many feeling pressured into buying the Elsevier packages without other options. On 21 January 2012, mathematician
Timothy Gowers Sir William Timothy Gowers, (; born 20 November 1963) is a British mathematician. He is Professeur titulaire of the Combinatorics chair at the Collège de France, and director of research at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity Col ...
publicly announced he would boycott Elsevier, noting that others in the field have been doing so privately. The reasons for the
boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...
are high subscription prices for individual journals, bundling subscriptions to journals of different value and importance, and Elsevier's support for
SOPA Sopa or SOPA may refer to: * Sopa (tribe), an Albanian tribe of the Sharr Mountains * Lake Sopa, Albania * School of Performing Arts Seoul, an arts high school in Seoul, South Korea * Senior Officer Present Afloat, a term used in the U.S. Navy ...
,
PIPA The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets rang ...
, and the
Research Works Act The Research Works Act, 102 H.R. 3699, was a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives at the 112th United States Congress on December 16, 2011, by Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) and co-sponsored by Carolyn B. Mal ...
, which would have prohibited open-access mandates for U.S. federally-funded research and severely restricted the sharing of scientific data. Following this, a petition advocating noncooperation with Elsevier (that is, not submitting papers to Elsevier journals, not refereeing articles in Elsevier journals, and not participating in journal editorial boards), appeared on the site "The Cost of Knowledge". By February 2012, this petition had been signed by over 5,000 academics, growing to over 17,000 by November 2018. The firm disputed the claims, claiming that their prices are below the industry average, and stating that bundling is only one of several different options available to buy access to Elsevier journals. The company also claimed that its profit margins are "simply a consequence of the firm's efficient operation". The academics replied that their work was funded by public money, thus should be freely available. On 27 February 2012, Elsevier issued a statement on its website that declared that it has withdrawn support from the Research Works Act. Although the Cost of Knowledge movement was not mentioned, the statement indicated the hope that the move would "help create a less heated and more productive climate" for ongoing discussions with research funders. Hours after Elsevier's statement, the sponsors of the bill, US House Representatives
Darrell Issa Darrell Edward Issa ( ; born November 1, 1953) is an American businessman and politician who has served as the U.S. representative for California's 50th congressional district since 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served i ...
and
Carolyn Maloney Carolyn Jane Maloney (née Bosher, February 19, 1946) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 2013, and for from 1993 to 2013. The district includes most of Manhattan's East Side, Astoria and Long Island City ...
, issued a joint statement saying that they would not push the bill in Congress.


Plan S

The
Plan S Plan S is an initiative for open-access science publishing launched in 2018 by "cOAlition S", a consortium of national research agencies and funders from twelve European countries. The plan requires scientists and researchers who benefit from s ...
open-access initiative, which began in Europe and has since spread to some US research funding agencies, would require researchers receiving some grants to publish in open-access journals by 2020. A spokesman for Elsevier said "If you think that information should be free of charge, go to
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
". In September 2018,
UBS UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...
advised to sell Elsevier (RELX) stocks, noting that Plan S could affect 5-10% of scientific funding and may force Elsevier to reduce pricing.


Relationship with academic institutions


Colombia

For 14 years, Colciencias, now Minciencias, led negotiations with Elsevier, as a practical and effective response to the informative growth of presumptive problems, allowing a greater number of Higher Education Institutions to join this project, thanks to it saves the scale that is obtained. Colombia has converted in the fourth country with the largest number of documents indexed in Scopus in Latin America (except for Brazil), growing by 57% in the last five years, a rate visibly greater in neighboring countries. The Colombian National Consortium
Consorcio Colombia
managed by Consortia S.A.S. agreed in 2016 to have better prices for the Consortium members. The current agreement is that (Colombia National Ministry of Science and Technology) Minciencias and (Colombian National ministry of Education) Mineducación reintegrate money to institutions on the total payment of products, with the condition that money must be reinvested in academic and research resources.


Finland

In 2015, Finnish research organizations paid a total of 27 million euros in subscription fees. Over one-third of the total costs went to Elsevier. The information was revealed after successful court appeal following a denied request on the subscription fees, due to confidentiality clauses in contracts with the publishers. Establishing of this fact lead to creation of tiedonhinta.fi petition demanding more reasonable pricing and open access to content signed by more than 2800 members of the research community. While deals with other publishers have been made, this was not the case for Elsevier, leading to the nodealnoreview.org boycott of the publisher signed more than 600 times. In January 2018, it was confirmed that a deal had been reached between those concerned.


France

The French Couperin consortium agreed in 2019 to a 4-year contract with Elsevier, despite criticism from the scientific community. The French
École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...
has stopped having Elsevier publish the journal ''
Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure ''Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure'' is a French scientific journal of mathematics published by the Société Mathématique de France. It was established in 1864 by the French chemist Louis Pasteur and published articles in ma ...
'' (as of 2008). Effective on 1 January 2020, the
French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...
stopped publishing its 7 journals Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences with Elsevier and switched to Centre Mersenne.


Germany

Almost no academic institution in Germany is subscribed to Elsevier. Germany's DEAL project (
Projekt DEAL Project DEAL (Projekt DEAL) is a consortium-like structure spearheaded by German Rectors' Conference, the German Rectors’ Conference, on behalf of its fellow members in the and tasked with negotiating nationwide transformative open access agreem ...
), which includes over 60 major research institutions, has announced that all of its members are cancelling their contracts with Elsevier, effective 1 January 2017. The boycott is in response to Elsevier's refusal to adopt "transparent business models" to "make publications more openly accessible". Horst Hippler, spokesperson for the DEAL consortium states that "taxpayers have a right to read what they are paying for" and that "publishers must understand that the route to open-access publishing at an affordable price is irreversible". In July 2017, another 13 institutions announced that they would also be cancelling their subscriptions to Elsevier journals. In August 2017, at least 185 German institutions had cancelled their contracts with Elsevier. In 2018, whilst negotiations were ongoing, around 200 German universities that cancelled their subscriptions to Elsevier journals were granted complimentary open access to them until this ended in July of the year. On 19 December 2018, the
Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...
(MPS) announced that the existing subscription agreement with Elsevier would not be renewed after the expiration date of 31 December 2018. MPS counts 14,000 scientists in 84 research institutes, publishing 12,000 articles each year.


Hungary

In March 2018, the Hungarian ''Electronic Information Service National Programme'' entered negotiations on its 2019 Elsevier subscriptions, asking for a read-and-publish deal. Negotiations were ended by the Hungarian consortium in December 2018, and the subscription was not renewed.


Iran

In 2013, Elsevier changed its policies in response to sanctions announced by the US
Office of Foreign Assets Control The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the U.S. Treasury Department. It administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions in support of U.S. national security and foreign policy ob ...
that year. This included a request that all Elsevier journals avoid publishing papers by Iranian nationals who are employed by the Iranian government. Elsevier executive Mark Seeley expressed regret on behalf of the company, but did not announce an intention to challenge this interpretation of the law.


Italy

CRUI (an association of Italian universities) sealed a 5-year-long deal for 2018–2022, despite protests from the scientific community, protests focused on aspects such as the lack of prevention of cost increases by means of the
double dipping A dual mandate is the practice in which elected officials serve in more than one elected or other public position simultaneously. This practice is sometimes known as double jobbing in Britain and ''cumul des mandats'' in France; not to be confused ...
.


Netherlands

In 2015, a consortium of all of Netherlands' 14 universities threatened to boycott Elsevier if it could not agree that articles by Dutch authors would be made open access and settled with the compromise of 30% of its Dutch papers becoming open access by 2018. Gerard Meijer, president of
Radboud University Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, nl, Radboud Universiteit , formerly ''Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen'') is a public research university located in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The university bears the name of Saint Radboud, a 9th century D ...
in
Nijmegen Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...
and lead negotiator on the Dutch side noted, "it's not the 100% that I hoped for".


Norway

In March 2019, the Norwegian government on behalf of 44 institutions — universities, university colleges, research institutes, and hospitals — decided to break negotiations on renewal of their subscription deal with Elsevier, because of disagreement regarding open-access policy and Elsevier's unwillingness to reduce the cost of reading access.


South Korea

In 2017, over 70 university libraries confirmed a "contract boycott" movement involving three publishers including Elsevier. As of January 2018, whilst negotiations remain underway, a decision will be made as to whether or not continue the participating libraries will continue the boycott. It was subsequently confirmed that an agreement had been reached.


Sweden

In May 2018, the
Bibsam Consortium Bibsam Consortium is a consortium in which 85 higher education and research institutions in Sweden participate to negotiate license agreements for electronic information resources. The consortium is headed by the National Library of Sweden and negot ...
, which negotiates license agreements on behalf of all Swedish universities and research institutes, decided not to renew their contract with Elsevier, alleging that the publisher does not meet the demands of transition towards a more open-access model, and referring to the rapidly increasing costs for publishing. Swedish universities will still have access to articles published before 30 June 2018. Astrid Söderbergh Widding, chairman of the Bibsam Consortium, said, "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". Sweden has a goal of open access by 2026. In November 2019 the negotiations concluded, with Sweden paying for reading access to Elsevier journals and open access publishing for all its researchers' articles.


Taiwan

In Taiwan, more than 75% of universities, including the country's top 11 institutions, have joined a collective boycott against Elsevier. On 7 December 2016, the Taiwanese consortium, CONCERT, which represents more than 140 institutions, announced it would not renew its contract with Elsevier.


United States

In March 2018,
Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...
's faculty elected to cancel its $2 million subscription to a bundle of several journals. Starting in 2019, it will instead buy access to titles'' à la carte''. In February 2019, the
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
said it would terminate subscriptions "in push for open access to publicly funded research." After months of negotiations over open access to research by UC researchers and prices for subscriptions to Elsevier journals, a press release by the UC Office of the President issued Thursday, 28 February 2019 stated "Under Elsevier’s proposed terms, the publisher would have charged UC authors large publishing fees on top of the university’s multimillion dollar subscription, resulting in much greater cost to the university and much higher profits for Elsevier." On 10 July 2019, Elsevier began restricting access to all new paywalled articles and approximately 5% of paywalled articles published before 2019. In April 2020, the
University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...
elected not to renew its bundled Elsevier package, citing a failure "to provide an affordable path". Rather than extend the license, which was stated to cost $2.6 million annually, the university decided to continue subscribing to a smaller set of individual journals. The
State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...
Libraries Consortium also announced similar outcome, with the help of estimates from
Unpaywall Journals OurResearch, formerly known as ImpactStory, is a nonprofit organization which creates and distributes tools and services for libraries, institutions and researchers. The organization follows open practices with their data (to the extent allowed by ...
. Similarly,
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
announced in June 2020 that it would no longer pay for access to new Elsevier articles. In 2022 Elsevier and the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
have established an agreement to support authors who wish to publish open access.


Ukraine

In June 2020 the Ukrainian government cancelled subscriptions for all universities in the country after failed negotiations. The Ministry of Education stated that Elsevier indexes journals in its register which call themselves Russian but are from occupied territories.


Dissemination of research


Lobbying efforts against open access

Elsevier have been known to be involved in lobbying against open access. These have included the likes of: *The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPPA) *The
Research Works Act The Research Works Act, 102 H.R. 3699, was a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives at the 112th United States Congress on December 16, 2011, by Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) and co-sponsored by Carolyn B. Mal ...
*PRISM. In the case of PRISM, the
Association of American Publishers The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal, and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercia ...
hired
Eric Dezenhall Eric B. Dezenhall (born September 9, 1962; pronounced DEHZ-in-hall) is an American crisis management consultant, author, and founder of Washington D.C.-based public relations firm Dezenhall Resources. His aggressive tactics on behalf of his cli ...
, the so-called "Pit Bull Of Public Relations". *
Horizon 2020 The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the Europea ...
*
Office of Science and Technology Policy An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...
(OSTP) *The
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
's Open Science Monitor was criticised after Elsevier were confirmed as a subcontractor. *
UK Research and Innovation UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom that directs research and innovation funding, funded through the science budget of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Str ...


Selling open-access articles

In 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, Elsevier was found to be selling some articles that should have been open access, but had been put behind a paywall. A related case occurred in 2015, when Elsevier charged for downloading an open-access article from a journal published by
John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...
. However, whether Elsevier was in violation of the license under which the article was made available on their website was not clear.


Action against academics posting their own articles online

In 2013,
Digimarc Digimarc Corporation is a provider of enterprise software and services. The company's software, which includes digital identifiers (i.e., serialized QR codes and digital watermarks), are designed to address counterfeiting, product authentici ...
, a company representing Elsevier, told the
University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...
to remove articles published by faculty authors on university web pages; although such
self-archiving Self-archiving is the act of (the author's) depositing a free copy of an electronic document online in order to provide open access to it. The term usually refers to the self-archiving of peer-reviewed research journal and conference articles, as ...
of academic articles may be legal under the
fair dealing Fair dealing is a limitation and exception to the exclusive rights granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. Fair dealing is found in many of the common law jurisdictions of the Commonwealth of Nations. Fair dealing is an en ...
provisions in Canadian
copyright law A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
, the university complied.
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and the
University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...
also received takedown notices for self-archived academic articles, a first for Harvard, according to
Peter Suber Peter Dain Suber (born November 8, 1951) is a philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly ...
. Months after its acquisition of
Academia.edu Academia.edu is a for-profit open repository of academic articles free to read by visitors. Uploading and downloading is restricted to registered users. Additional features are accessible only as a paid subscription. Since 2016 various social ...
rival
Mendeley Mendeley is a reference manager software developed by Elsevier. It is used to manage and share research papers and generate bibliographies for scholarly articles. History The company Mendeley, named after the biologist Gregor Mendel and chemist D ...
, Elsevier sent thousands of takedown notices to Academia.edu, a practice that has since ceased following widespread complaint by academics, according to Academia.edu founder and chief executive Richard Price. After Elsevier acquired the repository
SSRN The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a repository for preprints devoted to the rapid dissemination of scholarly research in the social sciences, humanities, life sciences, and health sciences, among others. Elsevier bought SSRN from So ...
in May 2016, academics started complaining that some of their work has been removed without notice. The action was explained as a technical error.


Sci-Hub and LibGen lawsuit

In 2015, Elsevier filed a lawsuit against the sites Sci-Hub and LibGen, which make copyright-protected articles available for free. Elsevier also claimed illegal access to institutional accounts.


Initial rejection of the Initiative for Open Citations

Among the major academic publishers, Elsevier alone declined to join the
Initiative for Open Citations The Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) is a project launched publicly in April 2017, that describes itself as: "a collaboration between scholarly publishers, researchers, and other interested parties to promote the unrestricted availability of ...
. In the context of the resignation of the ''Journal of Informetrics editorial board, the firm stated: "Elsevier invests significantly in citation extraction technology. While these are made available to those who wish to license this data, Elsevier cannot make such a large corpus of data, to which it has added significant value, available for free." Elsevier finally joined the initiative in January 2021 after the data was already available with an
Open Data Commons Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements ...
license in
Microsoft Academic Microsoft Academic was a free internet-based academic search engines for academic publications and literature, developed by Microsoft Research, shut down in 2022. At the same time, OpenAlex launched and claimed to be a successor to Microsoft Aca ...
.


ResearchGate take down

A chamber of the Munich Regional Court has ruled that the research networking site ResearchGate has to take down articles uploaded without consent from their original publishers and
ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education'' ...
must take down Elsevier articles. A case was brought forward in 2017 by the Coalition for Responsible Sharing, a group of publishers that includes Elsevier and the
American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...
.


Imprints

Elsevier uses its
imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...
s (that is,
brand names A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
used in publishing) to market to different consumer segments. Many of the imprints have previously been the names of publishing companies that were purchased by Reed Elsevier. *
Academic Press Academic Press (AP) is an academic book publisher founded in 1941. It was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier bought Harcourt in 2000, and Academic Press is now an imprint of Elsevier. Academic Press publishes reference ...
*Baillière Tindall *BC Decker *
Butterworth–Heinemann Butterworth–Heinemann is a British publishing company specialised in professional information and learning materials for higher education and professional training, in printed and electronic forms. It was formed in 1990 by the merger of Hei ...
*CMP *
Cell Press Cell Press is an all-science publisher of over 50 scientific journals across the life, physical, earth, and health sciences, both independently and in partnership with scientific societies. Many of Cell Press's journals are among the most reputabl ...
*
Churchill Livingstone Churchill Livingstone is an academic publisher. It was formed in 1971 from the merger of Longman's medical list, E & S Livingstone (Edinburgh, Scotland) and J & A Churchill (London, England) and was owned by Pearson. Harcourt acquired Churchill ...
*Digital Press *Elsevier *
Gulf Professional Publishing Gulf Publishing Company is an international publishing and events business dedicated to the hydrocarbon energy sector. In mid-2018 it rebranded as Gulf Energy Information. Founded in 1916 by Ray Lofton Dudley, Gulf Energy Information produces an ...
*GW Medical Publishing *Hanley & Belfus * Masson *
Medicine Publishing Medicine Publishing was an academic publishing company established in 1972. Since 2005, it is an imprint (trade name), imprint of Elsevier. History The company was founded with the establishment of its first journal, Medicine (Elsevier journal) ...
*
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is a Burlington, Massachusetts (San Francisco, California until 2008) based publisher specializing in computer science and engineering content. Since 1984, Morgan Kaufmann has published content on information technolog ...
* Mosby *Newnes *North-Holland Publishing Company *
Pergamon Press Pergamon Press was an Oxford-based publishing house, founded by Paul Rosbaud and Robert Maxwell, that published scientific and medical books and journals. Originally called Butterworth-Springer, it is now an imprint of Elsevier. History The cor ...
*Pergamon Flexible Learning *
Saunders Saunders is a surname of English and Scottish patronymic origin derived from Sander, a mediaeval form of Alexander.See also: Sander (name) People * Ab Saunders (1851–1883), American cowboy and gunman * Al Saunders (born 1947), American footb ...
*Syngress *Urban & Fischer * William Andrew *
Woodhead Publishing Woodhead Publishing Limited was established in 1989 as an independent international publishing company of science and technical books. The company publishes books in association with The Textile Institute, Cambridge International Science Publishin ...
(including Chandos and Horwood)


See also

*
List of Elsevier periodicals This is a list of scientific, technical and general interest periodicals published by Elsevier or one of its imprints or subsidiary companies. Both printed items and electronic publications are included in this list. A B C D E F G ...
* 2collab, a free researcher collaboration tool launched by Elsevier in 2007 and discontinued in 2011 * Sci-Hub, a website providing free access to otherwise paywalled academic papers on a massive scale that is involved in a legal case with Elsevier *
Bertelsmann Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA () is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates, and is also active in the service sector and ...
*
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group Holtzbrinck Publishing Group () is a privately held German company based in Stuttgart which owns publishing companies worldwide. Through Macmillan Publishers, it is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies. In 2015, it merge ...
*
Lagardère Publishing Lagardère Publishing is the book publishing arm of Lagardère Group. Publishing companies and imprints France *Calmann-Lévy *Deux Coqs d'Or *Disney Hachette Edition *EDICEF *Editions 1 *Editions du Chêne **E.P.A *Éditions Dunod *Editions ...
*
McGraw Hill Education McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referen ...
*
News Corp News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The second incarnation of the News Corporation (1980–2013), original News Corporation, it was formed ...
*
Pearson plc Pearson plc is a British multinational corporation, multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London, England. It was founded as a construction business in the 1840s but switched to publishing in the 1920s.J. A. Spende ...
*
Scholastic Corporation Scholastic Corporation () is an American multinational publishing, education, and media company that publishes and distributes books, comics, and educational materials for schools, parents, and children. Products are distributed via retail and on ...
*
Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...
*
Wiley (publisher) John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, in p ...


References


Citations


Sources

*


External links

*
Campaign success: Reed Elsevier sells international arms fairs
* {{authority control
Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...
Academic publishing companies Bibliographic database providers Companies based in Amsterdam Multinational companies headquartered in the Netherlands Publishing companies established in 1880 Publishing companies of the Netherlands Dutch companies established in 1880