{"id":2337,"date":"2019-03-19T07:52:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-19T07:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/norway-joins-the-ranks-of-germany-and-sweden-cancels-subscription-with-elsevier\/"},"modified":"2025-02-21T08:35:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T08:35:11","slug":"norway-joins-the-ranks-of-germany-and-sweden-cancels-subscription-with-elsevier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/norway-joins-the-ranks-of-germany-and-sweden-cancels-subscription-with-elsevier","title":{"rendered":"Norway joins the ranks of Germany and Sweden, cancels subscription with Elsevier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Norway canceled its subscription with Elsevier after the negotiations between the publisher and Norway\u2019s negotiating consortium regarding access to research papers failed to reach an agreement. Consequently, Norwegian researchers will lose access to the new articles published in Elsevier journals, although it\u2019s not clear when the access will be halted. Germany, Sweden, Hungary, and the University of California system have already ended their contracts with Elsevier after prolonged negotiations to strike a deal with the publisher failed. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Norway\u2019s negotiating consortium started talks with Elsevier in early 2018 as the contract would have lapsed towards the end of that year. However, as the negotiation with the publisher came to a standstill, the consortium announced that it would refrain from signing a new contract with Elsevier in 2019. This means researchers at Norwegian institutions will no longer be able to access the latest articles published in Elsevier journals. Reportedly, Elsevier has continued to provide free access to Norwegian universities since then, though the publisher has\u00a0indicated that they \u201ccannot continue service indefinitely without being paid<\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The primary demand of Norwegian universities has been for Elsevier to adopt the \u201cread-and-publish\u201d model – a deal where the cost of accessing subscription-based articles would be offset against the cost to make it open access. However, Elsevier refused to meet this demand saying the consortium is \u201casking to receive two services for the price of one.<\/a>\u201d Elsevier claims to have offered multiple low-cost options to Norway, but also asserted that \u201copen access is a service that has to be funded in some form.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Katrine Weisteen Bjerde, director of research services strategy at the Directorate for ICT and Shared Services in Higher Education and Research, the body that represented the 44 institutions negotiating with Elsevier, said that the proportion of articles that Elsevier offered to make open access was small. \u00a0It refused to consider cutting subscription charges for universities too, she said. Bjerde added that Norway\u00a0\u201chas been emboldened<\/a>\u201d by other countries that have let their Elsevier subscription lapse and are \u201cdoing quite OK<\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As reported in Times Higher Education<\/a><\/i>, Norway\u2019s decision to sever the contract may cause Elsevier to lose \u20ac10 million (approximately $11 million) in revenue this year as the universities\u2019 subscriptions amounted to \u20ac9 million while they paid \u20ac1 million in charges for open access publishing. The article also suggests that this loss might be negligible for the publishing giant whose revenue stood at \u00a32.5 billion (over $3 billion dollars) in 2018 in spite of the boycotts by open access advocates. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It remains to be seen how the boycott of Elsevier journals shapes up the open access movement. What do you think about this latest development? Please share your views on the universities\u2019 decision and the publisher\u2019s stance in this situation in the comments section below.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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