Five German scientists decided to quit Elsevier. They decided to resign from their editorial positions in protest of Elsevier’s open access policy. The reason behind these scientists’ decision is Elsevier’s refusal to accept a new open access payment model offered by the German libraries, universities and research institutes.

German based Projekt DEAL, a consortium of leading German research institutes,  coordinated efforts to push Elsevier to embrace open access. It has been negotiating with Elsevier to make all papers published by researchers based in Germany open access;  in return for the publication cost that Projekt DEAL covers. The major point of contention is about who else can access these papers. Projekt DEAL wants these papers to be globally accessible free of charge. However, Elsevier does not want these papers to be freely accessible to researchers and readers outside Germany.

The criticism Elsevier and others are facing is that despite taking some steps, they have not gone far in terms of embracing open access. Those industry dominating companies including Elsevier publish some of the most prestigious journals in many research fields.  Individual institutions have very little leverage over those publishers. That is why coordinated action seem to work to some degree. Last year, in a similar way, the Dutch universities forced Elsevier to come to terms with their demand.

Sciencemag | German researchers resign from Elsevier journals in push for nationwide open access