[Entire board resigns over actions of academic publisher whose
profit margins outstrip even Google and Amazon]
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SCIENCE SUNDAY: ‘TOO GREEDY’ –MASS WALKOUT AT GLOBAL SCIENCE
JOURNAL OVER ‘UNETHICAL’ FEES  
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Anna Fazackerley
May 7, 2023
The Guardian
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_ Entire board resigns over actions of academic publisher whose
profit margins outstrip even Google and Amazon _

An Elsevier facility in Missouri. They company has been accused of
preying on the academic community, Kristoffer Tripplaar/Alamy

 

More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the
editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they
describe as the “greed” of publishing giant Elsevier.

The entire academic board of the journal _Neuroimage_, including
professors from Oxford University, King’s College London and Cardiff
University resigned
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Elsevier refused to reduce publication charges.

Academics around the world have applauded what many hope is the start
of a rebellion against the huge profit margins
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academic publishing, which outstrip those made by Apple, Google and
Amazon.

_Neuroimage_, the leading publication globally for brain-imaging
research, is one of many journals that are now “open access”
rather than sitting behind a subscription paywall. But its charges to
authors reflect its prestige, and academics now pay over £2,700 for a
research paper to be published. The former editors say this is
“unethical” and bears no relation to the costs involved.

Professor Chris Chambers, head of brain stimulation at Cardiff
University and one of the resigning team, said: “Elsevier preys on
the academic community, claiming huge profits while adding little
value to science.”

He has urged fellow scientists to turn their backs on the Elsevier
journal and submit papers to a nonprofit open-access journal which the
team is setting up instead.

He told the _Observer_: “All Elsevier cares about is money and this
will cost them a lot of money. They just got too greedy. The academic
community can withdraw our consent to be exploited at any time. That
time is now.”

Elsevier, a Dutch company that claims to publish 25% of the world’s
scientific papers, reported a 10% increase in its revenue to £2.9bn
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year. But it’s the profit margins, nearing 40%
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according to its 2019 accounts, which anger academics most. The big
scientific publishers keep costs low because academics write up their
research – typically funded by charities and the public purse –
for free. They “peer review” each other’s work to verify it is
worth publishing for free, and academic editors collate it for free or
for a small stipend. Academics are then often charged thousands of
pounds to have their work published in open-access journals, or
universities will pay very high subscription charges.

Stephen Smith, professor of biomedical engineering at Oxford
University and formerly editor-in-chief at _Neuroimage_, said:
“Academics really don’t like the way things are, but individuals
feel powerless to get the huge publishers to start behaving more
ethically.

Researchers put up with it because they want to publish in prestigious
journals that will help their careers and ensure their work is widely
read and cited.”

But he warned publishers, “Enough is enough. By taking the entire
set of editors across to start the new journal, we are taking the
reputation with us.”

A spokesperson for Elsevier said: “We value our editors very highly
and are disappointed [with the resignations], especially as we have
been engaging constructively with them over the last couple of
years.”

He said the company was “committed to advancing open-access
research” and its article publishing charges were “below the
market average relative to quality. The fee for _NeuroImage_ is
below that of the nearest comparable journal in its field.”

Meanwhile, university libraries are angry about the cost of the online
textbooks they say students now overwhelmingly want to read – often
many times more expensive than their paper equivalent. Professor Chris
Pressler, director of Manchester University Library, said: “We are
facing a sustained onslaught of exploitative price models in both
teaching and research.”

According to a spreadsheet
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costs quoted to university librarians, Manchester University gave a
recent example of being quoted £75 for a popular plant biology
textbook in print, but £975 for a three-user ebook licence.
Meanwhile _Learning to Read Mathematics in the Secondary School_, a
textbook for trainee teachers published by Routledge, was £35.99 in
print and £560 for a single user ebook.

A spokesperson for Taylor and Francis, which owns Routledge, said:
“We strive to ensure that book prices are both affordable and a fair
representation of their value.” He said a print book could be
checked out for weeks at a time whereas ebooks could be checked in and
out rapidly and had a much wider distribution.

He added: “Academic publishers provide services that are essential
to a well-functioning research and scholarly communication ecosystem,
and most researchers recognise this is a valuable service worth paying
for. “

Caroline Ball, librarian at Derby University and co-founder of the
academic campaign EbookSOS [[link removed]],
said: “This is creating a digital hierarchy of haves and have-nots.
There are institutions that just can’t afford these prices for
texts.”

_ANNA FAZACKERLEY is a freelance education journalist, focusing on
universities_

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