Nature: Elsevier talks with the German academic community

Starting January 1, 2018, thousands of German scientists will not be able to browse Elsevier's e-journal database Projekt deal, which represents the common rights and interests of more than 200 universities, research institutions and public libraries in Germany, has not made substantial progress in the negotiation of new contracts with Elsevier, which has triggered this sensational scientific event As the world's largest international academic journal multimedia publishing group, founded in 1880, Elsevier, headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has always been committed to disseminating classic academic and promoting the development of science and technology Every year, more than 400000 papers are published in more than 2500 journals of Elsevier group for researchers around the world to search, read and download The annual literature download volume is nearly 900 million times Its famous magazines include cell, the lancet and tetrahedron Free University of Berlin is an important member of Projekt deal (source: nature) However, Elsevier group's expensive subscription fee and too strict restrictions on open access (OA) make many universities and scientific research institutions very dissatisfied In 2012, the cost of knowledge, an American website, collected the signatures of 12000 scientists It did not publish papers in Elsevier's journals, act as reviewers or editors Since then, many Elsevier platform users have set up various academic organizations, saying that they will boycott the publishing group by canceling the subscription, but in the end, they often negotiate with the publishing group in the form of negotiation to obtain some concessions, so as to avoid their own researchers being unable to use them Projekt deal, a consortium of University Libraries and research institutions in Germany, was the first academic organization not to compromise with publishing groups Its negotiators, who have been negotiating with Elsevier for more than two years, hope to reach an agreement of intent that will enable most scientists in Germany to access about 2500 Elsevier published journals online at half the price of the past In addition, open access is another core focus of the negotiation The paper authors of German institutions can read the paper for free and share it with anyone in the world for free Advocates of global open access publications believe that if Projekt deal wins the negotiation, it will have a significant impact on the traditional subscription based scientific publishing model If German academic institutions can stand firm in the struggle of reducing the subscription price of journals and promoting the instant opening of papers, it may indicate profound changes in the global academic publishing pattern In contrast, the price reduction and open access negotiations between Projekt deal and Elsevier failed Hansfried von Hindenburg, spokesman for Elsevier, said that 19% of the German authors' papers published in 2016 were published in Elsevier's journals Elsevier recognizes the urgency of achieving 100% open access and is happy to be able to support this goal as much as possible, but the challenge for Elsevier is how to make continuous transformation for all stakeholders At present, there is no precedent for 100% free sharing of papers published in Elsevier's journals In 2015, Elsevier reached an agreement with 14 universities in the Netherlands to allow scientists to select 30% of the journals of papers for free use In September, Elsevier signed a nationwide contract with the University of Finland alliance, which includes allowing Finnish authors free access to papers.