Thanks to institutional subscriptions, commercial scientific publishers operate a lucrative market. How lucrative? Spectacularly so. A brief thread focusing on Elsevier, for reasons that will become clear. (1/n)
@ElsevierConnect
@ElsevierConnect
In 2019, Elsevier made a profit of £982 million (out of r £2.6 billion revenue). Is that a big profit? In dollars, it’s $1.2 billion. In euros, €1.1 billion. It’s a big number, but maybe it’s okay? (2/n)
Source: relx.com/investors/annu…
Source: relx.com/investors/annu…
To judge a profit, divide it by revenue, to obtain “net margin”. Elsevier’s is 982/2,637, which is… 37%. Twice as profitable as Google! No industry is so profitable. The top is banking at 31%. Pharma is at 18%. Tobacco: 17%. Oil 9%. Alcohol 8%. (3/n)
pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_…
pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_…
Is there anything wrong with making money? Yes, if it takes away from education and scientific research. For example, Elsevier’s profit could cover the research funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute or by Wellcome Trust. (4/n)
hhmi.org/about/financia…, wellcome.ac.uk/reports/grant-…
hhmi.org/about/financia…, wellcome.ac.uk/reports/grant-…
Many scientists are fed up with this situation. Mutiny is in the air. For instance, see this recent initiative by 97 brain scientists in the Board of a top Elsevier journal. (5/n)
And see this recent announcement by MIT, which is joining the University of California and all of Germany in not renewing their Elsevier subscription. (6/n)
The funders (mostly in Europe) are waging a big battle: they formed a @coalition_S with a decisive plan, called Plan S. It will kick in next year and will outright ban us from publishing in journals that are not Open Access (or on their way to it). (7/n)
coalition-s.org
coalition-s.org
This is particularly urgent because of the Covid crisis. We need to spend on research or education, and cut waste. Universities must speak up, like MIT, California, and Germany have. I argue that UCL should not renew its Elsevier subscription. (8/n)
ucl.ac.uk/library/
ucl.ac.uk/library/
There are many opinions about scientific journals. I support them, and in fact (for now) I am on the Board of two Elsevier journals, Neuron @neurocellpress and Curr Op Neurobiol @ELSneuroscience. But I don’t see why Elsevier (and Springer, which is similar) should be fleecing us.
(oops, I meant @cOAlitionS_OA. And while I'm at it, let me add @robertkiley @globalhlthtwit @DavidPriceUCL @wellcometrust @HHMINEWS )
