The current Jisc Collections Elsevier ScienceDirect Journal agreement, which commenced in 2017 and will end on 31 December 2021, is the UK’s largest subscription agreement. In 2020, Elsevier received £41.95m in contractual subscription fees from subscribers to read content published in 1,808 subscription journals. Outside of the Jisc agreement, Elsevier also receives payments for articles to be published immediately open access in hybrid journals direct from researchers via institutions, and from research funders via institutions - in 2019 this was c£7.24m.
In 2021, sector expenditure will total over £50m, comprised of subscription spend and 2019 hybrid open access publishing spend. For this spend, approximately 25% of UK authored articles published with Elsevier will be published open access.
Universities, researchers, and funders need the investment they make in creating and funding research published by Elsevier to deliver better value.
It is now necessary to negotiate an agreement that brings the costs of both reading and full and immediate open access publishing in line with other agreements and in line with funder policies and sector requirements.