I have a question: Why are we still in business with Elsevier in 2026?
-
I have a question: Why are we still in business with Elsevier in 2026?
Academic institutions are committed to democracy, digital sovereignty and environmental sustainability.
But do these values also guide purchasing decisions? Let’s look at Elsevier, a major provider of academic publishing, analytics and software, and its wider corporate group:
️ Elsevier works with the fossil fuel industry, providing data and analytics that support oil and gas exploration.
Elsevier’s corporate affiliate LexisNexis Risk Solutions provides data services to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
️ And companies within Elsevier’s corporate structures have been registered in jurisdictions commonly associated with tax avoidance and tax-haven structures.At the same time, academic institutions collectively spend 3.16 billion Euros on Elsevier’s products and services.
Every contract is also a decision about which infrastructures and organisations we fund. There are alternatives. Open infrastructures are built around a fundamentally different model: transparency, community governance and the idea that critical scholarly infrastructure should serve the public interest.
Yet many of these infrastructures struggle due to insufficient funding.
This is not about pretending that changing infrastructure is easy. It isn’t. But surely we should at least be asking ourselves:
Are the organisations we fund helping to build the future we want? Sources in the reply.
#WhoAreWeFunding #FundTheFutureYouWant
#OpenScience #OpenInfrastructures
#NoTechForICE #S4FSources:
Revealed: leading climate research publisher helps fuel oil and gas drilling: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/24/elsevier-publishing-climate-science-fossil-fuels
Addressing the Alarming Systems of Surveillance Built By Library Vendors:
https://sparcopen.org/news/2021/addressing-the-alarming-systems-of-surveillance-built-by-library-vendors/Elsevier has incorporated 35 companies in Delaware: https://opencorporates.com/companies?q=elsevier&type=companies
Exploring the Role Delaware Plays as a Domestic Tax Haven: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1737937
RELX Annual Report 2025: https://www.relx.com/investors/annual-reports/2025
A note on the sources: The points in the post refer to documented corporate relationships and activities. In particular, incorporation in a jurisdiction associated with tax avoidance does not in itself establish that Elsevier or RELX engaged in tax avoidance.
Image: Garry Knight / CC0 1.0 Universal
-
Sources:
Revealed: leading climate research publisher helps fuel oil and gas drilling: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/24/elsevier-publishing-climate-science-fossil-fuels
Addressing the Alarming Systems of Surveillance Built By Library Vendors:
https://sparcopen.org/news/2021/addressing-the-alarming-systems-of-surveillance-built-by-library-vendors/Elsevier has incorporated 35 companies in Delaware: https://opencorporates.com/companies?q=elsevier&type=companies
Exploring the Role Delaware Plays as a Domestic Tax Haven: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1737937
RELX Annual Report 2025: https://www.relx.com/investors/annual-reports/2025
A note on the sources: The points in the post refer to documented corporate relationships and activities. In particular, incorporation in a jurisdiction associated with tax avoidance does not in itself establish that Elsevier or RELX engaged in tax avoidance.
Image: Garry Knight / CC0 1.0 Universal
And many more sources on their #Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Criticism_and_controversies
-
And many more sources on their #Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Criticism_and_controversies
@brembs Thanks Björn!
-
@brembs Thanks Björn!
@PeterKraker @brembs I must say I'm bit puzzled and frustrated. This has been an issue for 20 years or more, but there seem to be very little change. Everybody complains but in the end researchers still publish there.
Why is the academic publishing system so hard to change?
-
@PeterKraker @brembs I must say I'm bit puzzled and frustrated. This has been an issue for 20 years or more, but there seem to be very little change. Everybody complains but in the end researchers still publish there.
Why is the academic publishing system so hard to change?
I fear that the situation is even worse than it was 20 years ago. It’s no longer just about publishing: academic software (e.g. PURE), services (e.g. Scopus), and analytics tools (e.g. SciVal and PlumX) have also been readily adopted by academic institutions.
There are many reasons for this, but what I believe is missing is sustained lobbying at the level of decision-makers: a kind of advocacy and pressure group for open infrastructures that maintains a constant presence and activity, countering the relentless lobbying of Elsevier and others.
Of course, I realise that many people are already advocating for open infrastructures in different contexts. But I think it would be a huge boost to have a professional organisation dedicated to this work. One that can engage continuously with decision-makers and bring the issue more visibly into public attention.
-
@PeterKraker @brembs I must say I'm bit puzzled and frustrated. This has been an issue for 20 years or more, but there seem to be very little change. Everybody complains but in the end researchers still publish there.
Why is the academic publishing system so hard to change?
@StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker
One big reason is that it is pretty irrelevant where we publish, as long as the money flows. And that money has always come mostly from big deals (today often called "transformative agreements"), which are completely removed from where we publish or any kind of demand.
I have seen with my own eyes university leadership signing such contrast even though the relevajnmt committee was unanimously against signing it.
-
@PeterKraker @brembs I must say I'm bit puzzled and frustrated. This has been an issue for 20 years or more, but there seem to be very little change. Everybody complains but in the end researchers still publish there.
Why is the academic publishing system so hard to change?
@StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker @brembs
It may help to break down the first premise:
> Academic institutions are committed to democracy, digital sovereignty and environmental sustainability.
Some of the individuals in academia are but, much like corporations, the administrative and financial aspects are not aligned.
If faculty and students of institutions are harassed by their school for protesting involvement with wars and genocide then institutions are not monolithic bastions of democracy
-
@StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker @brembs
It may help to break down the first premise:
> Academic institutions are committed to democracy, digital sovereignty and environmental sustainability.
Some of the individuals in academia are but, much like corporations, the administrative and financial aspects are not aligned.
If faculty and students of institutions are harassed by their school for protesting involvement with wars and genocide then institutions are not monolithic bastions of democracy
@PeterKraker @brembs Understanding what parts of the system have a vested interest in something other than those values can help readers understand who the target audience of @StephanMatthiesen message is or who they need to work with, through, or around to make it happen.
It's also worth breaking down "what is democracy" because it is not inherently "justice" or "equality for all", though that is often the presumed intent, as the mechanics are equally valid for creating discrimination.
-
@StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker
One big reason is that it is pretty irrelevant where we publish, as long as the money flows. And that money has always come mostly from big deals (today often called "transformative agreements"), which are completely removed from where we publish or any kind of demand.
I have seen with my own eyes university leadership signing such contrast even though the relevajnmt committee was unanimously against signing it.
@StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker
So one *big* reason is institutions that just keep paying no matter what - as if our institutions didn't know what to do with all their public funds and in their desperation throw it at the most unethical multinationals they can find.
You tell me what you think is the most likely reason behind such behavior?
-
@StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker
So one *big* reason is institutions that just keep paying no matter what - as if our institutions didn't know what to do with all their public funds and in their desperation throw it at the most unethical multinationals they can find.
You tell me what you think is the most likely reason behind such behavior?
@brembs @StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker Publishers such as Elsevier have capitalized academic prestige, which everyone depends on to proceed in their career in a world that is built around publication metrics. Abandoning a harmful publisher to establish an ethical alternative and build up prestige there is a collective action problem. Quite similar to the network effect of Meta, X & Co.
I doubt that cancelling public funding to harmful/commercial publishers alone will fix the issue ...
-
@brembs @StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker Publishers such as Elsevier have capitalized academic prestige, which everyone depends on to proceed in their career in a world that is built around publication metrics. Abandoning a harmful publisher to establish an ethical alternative and build up prestige there is a collective action problem. Quite similar to the network effect of Meta, X & Co.
I doubt that cancelling public funding to harmful/commercial publishers alone will fix the issue ...
@brembs @StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker ... instead of just increasing the dependency of academia on private funding. Maybe the only holistic solution to this issue would be to develop some form of collectivization/expropriation of the journals of companies that should never have been allowed to turn the work of the community into commercial brands in the first place. But this would require a regulator that prioritizes common good over capitalism ...
-
@PeterKraker @brembs Understanding what parts of the system have a vested interest in something other than those values can help readers understand who the target audience of @StephanMatthiesen message is or who they need to work with, through, or around to make it happen.
It's also worth breaking down "what is democracy" because it is not inherently "justice" or "equality for all", though that is often the presumed intent, as the mechanics are equally valid for creating discrimination.
@zimzat @PeterKraker @StephanMatthiesen
Yes, I completely agree. Our institutions are failing and the fish is rotting from the head.
-
S suneauken@mastodon.world shared this topic
-
@brembs @StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker ... instead of just increasing the dependency of academia on private funding. Maybe the only holistic solution to this issue would be to develop some form of collectivization/expropriation of the journals of companies that should never have been allowed to turn the work of the community into commercial brands in the first place. But this would require a regulator that prioritizes common good over capitalism ...
@LinqLover @StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker
Wekll, it would help if regulators such as governemnt accountability offices (Rechnungshof) realized that since the publishers abandoned subscriptions, their single source exemption from procurement rules also vanished:
https://bjoern.brembs.net/2022/03/why-publication-services-must-not-be-negotiated/
The EU, at least, understands the core problem:
https://bjoern.brembs.net/2026/01/procurement-before-prestige/
-
@LinqLover @StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker
Wekll, it would help if regulators such as governemnt accountability offices (Rechnungshof) realized that since the publishers abandoned subscriptions, their single source exemption from procurement rules also vanished:
https://bjoern.brembs.net/2022/03/why-publication-services-must-not-be-negotiated/
The EU, at least, understands the core problem:
https://bjoern.brembs.net/2026/01/procurement-before-prestige/
@LinqLover @StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker
So regulators only need to enforce existing rules and things would stand to change dramatically, when institutions need to host biddings for their publication needs!
-
@LinqLover @StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker
So regulators only need to enforce existing rules and things would stand to change dramatically, when institutions need to host biddings for their publication needs!
@brembs @StephanMatthiesen @PeterKraker Regulation would help! Still, I have two concerns:
1. If such regulations are not applied at a big scale (eg, at least EU-wide, preferably internationally), won't prestige still remain desirable for many? This would give researchers under different legislation or privately funded projects an advantage or might create bad incentives to switch funding.
2. How can we overcome the existing association of pecuniary prestige with high quality in many fields?
-
T tanyakaroli@expressional.social shared this topic
