Mass exodus from magazines in protest of high “immoral” publishing prices

Publishing

More than 40 editors at two magazines published by publishing giant Elsevier have resigned in protest at starting a new magazine.

Brussels (Chrono): editors for NeuroImage And NeuroImage: reports They will not go quietly to the doors when they leave the magazines now.

Close the door.

In a joint statement, the editors came out forcefully against what they believe are the unethically high prices for publishing in the magazines, set by publisher Elsevier. They write that they tried to persuade the publisher to lower the price, but to no avail. At the same time, the editors announce that they are going to start a new open-publication utopia journal, Photography Neurologywith the aim of taking a leadership position in its field, from NeuroImage.

More than 40 editors have resigned

NeuroImage It started in 1992 and has gone accordingly nature More than to open publishing – also known as open access – in 2020. It was the following year NeuroImage: reports Launched to publish results and methods.

The dispute revolves around the publication fee, or so-called article processing fee (APC), which publishers charge researchers to publish with open access. When the journal switched to open publishing, the publication fee was set at 3,000. Since then, it has been raised twice.

Today it’s $3,450 – more than NOK 36,000 – to publish an article.

The editors wrote in their statement that they tried to convince Elsevier to lower these fees because they believed the high profits were “immoral and unsustainable”. At the same time, they announced that all of the editors, numbering more than 40, had resigned.

All in one declared message on Twitter, where they also shared the statement.

He should have asked for a reduction

According to the editors, an article in related journals is estimated to cost $1,000 or less.

“Increasingly, researchers and funders feel it wrong for publishers to receive such a high profit,” they wrote, noting that publishers have not funded the research behind it and that they do not pay writers or colleagues.

According to the statement, the editors asked Elsevier to reduce the publishing fee to less than $2,000, and in March they reportedly threatened to quit. They wrote that Elsevier responded in April that it would not be cut because they believe market forces support the current APC.

For her part, Elsevier responded, according to Nature, that the publishing fee goes to cover the costs associated with publishing an open-access article. Andrew Davis of Elsevier told the journal that NeuroImages’ APC is lower than the nearest comparable journal in the field.

There are significant differences in publication fees in different journals and publishers. According to Nature, Elsevier has a net worth of $6,300 Lancet Neurosciencewhile that for Springer Natures Natural neuroscience It stands at $11,690 and for Wiley Mapping the human brain 3850 dollars.

“Pure greed from Elsevier”

One of the outgoing editors, Chris Chambers, a professor at Cardiff University, was not harsh in his criticism of the publisher. Reverse Times Higher Education He described the latest publication fee increase as “pure greed on the part of Elsevier”.

“The truth is we don’t need Elsevier, it’s a parasitic corporation that takes the product of science for nothing and then demands that readers and researchers buy back access,” he tells the paper.