Background
Universities clash with publisher
The negotiations between the umbrella organisation VSNU (Association of Universities in the Netherlands) and publishing house Elsevier have reached a deadlock.
Bart Braun
Wednesday 12 November 2014

Ordinary civilians cannot read the majority of academic papers because the journals in which they are published often belong to large publishing houses: you must pay if you want to read them.

Universities pay for access and the umbrella organisation VSNU negotiates on their behalf with the publishers about exactly how many millions they must pay for that access.

But now talks with Elsevier, one of the largest publishers, have ground to a halt. This is a rather big deal, as Elsevier owns a number of major academic journals and millions of Euros are involved. To illustrate: this year, Leiden University alone paid 866,000 Euros for Elsevier’s journals.

The stumbling block is Open Access: the notion that civilians contributed towards the research with tax and should therefore be able to access the papers without paying extra.

The Netherlands has ambitious plans on that account: last year, Sander Dekker, the State Secretary, announced that the Ministry of Education and Science felt that all academic work funded with public money should be public by 2024.

The universities feel that Elsevier is not putting much effort into achieving that target.

Bastiaan Verweij of the VSNU says: “We completely agree with Dekker: we need a future in which academic papers are freely accessible to everyone. Elsevier says that they’re working on it, but they’re not doing enough and what little they do is not nearly as substantial as it should be.

“We’re not happy paying double: researchers must pay to get their research published and universities pay again to read the journal containing that research. We want to pay for the first part but not the second. Don’t think we don’t want to pay anything: the universities pay to publish so the papers should be accessible to everyone.

“Doctors treating patients, the patients themselves and businesses need to be able to read those papers. Research paid for by public funding into something like Ebola, a subject that’s worrying lots of people at the moment, should be accessible. The publishers will still make millions, only in a different way.”

Is it a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul? “At the moment, we’re paying Peter and Paul” Verweij claims. “And we’re fed up. Yes, it will mess up the publishers’ revenue model.”

The VSNU is not in favour of a hybrid model illustrated by the arrangement with Nature, with researchers paying extra for public access, because universities would still be paying for a subscription and then again for open access.

If things go badly wrong, staff at Dutch universities will face a pay wall next year if they want to read the latest articles in Cell, The Lancet or other Elsevier publications.

Verweij adds: “I realise it’s quite a problem. Somehow researchers must be able to access them. But we still have time to negotiate. Elsevier has announced last week that they expect to resume talks, and they must have a reason. I presume that it means they’ve got a new proposal. But if they want to talk, they must make us a better offer.”