Nature: German scholars gain temporary access to Elsevier's charged journals

High subscription fees have become a major controversy between research institutes and publishers German academic units have already overburdened Elsevier's journal subscription fees, so in 2014, more than 200 universities, public libraries and research units jointly formed Projekt deal group, with the main goal of reaching a new round of national subscription agreement with large scientific research publishers Last month, the negotiation between Projekt deal and Elsevier on price reduction and open access finally came to an end, resulting in the loss of access to Elsevier charging journals for all units within the group since December 31 Recently, however, Elsevier conceded that it would allow scientists in the country to access its paid journals without a contract until a new national subscription agreement was finalized Source: Harald Boersma, spokesman for iStock Elsevier, said that the two sides had a very constructive dialogue in December Elsevier and Projekt deal will continue the dialogue in the first quarter of 2018, find a solution for German researchers to access charging journals in 2018, and sign a long-term national subscription agreement In the event of termination of the visit agreement, Elsevier has informed German academic institutions that researchers will be able to continue to visit Elsevier's paid content, and the two sides will further negotiate solutions, especially to extend the existing contract as soon as possible G ü nter Ziegler, a mathematician at the Free University of Berlin and a member of the coalition negotiating group, said German researchers clearly had the upper hand in the negotiations He stressed that most papers can now be obtained free of charge anywhere on the Internet If some papers need to be read for a fee, researchers are likely to choose to look directly for pre printed versions Obviously, the position of open access is in line with the trend The biggest problem now is that the alliance is not clear whether it needs to pay for the extension of the old contract A series of sensational academic events in Germany have attracted the attention of academic publishers and scholars all over the world Publishers are keen to observe the situation in Germany, and the final outcome of the negotiations may have a profound impact on the publishing industry Scholars around the world focus on the open access option in the national agreement that German scientists seek According to this option, all relevant authors related to German institutions will be allowed to freely read and share the research literature of any scholar in the world This will be a milestone in the efforts of global researchers If Projekt deal finally wins the negotiation, it will mark that research results funded by public resources can be immediately and freely fed back to scientists and the public.