⚠️💰 134 500 000 € for €lsevier from France 💸
France has just signed a "transformative agreement" with Elsevier https://lnkd.in/eaSr2PRh, and I believe this deserves our collective attention. As an Open Science enthusiast and co-founder of JTCAM: Journal of Theoretical, Computational and Applied Mechanics, I'd like to share some critical insights:
📊 The Agreement:
Cost: 😮 €134.5 million over 4 years
Covers 241 French institutions (44 of which are free of charge)
Approximately €690,000 per paying institution
💰 To put this in perspective, compare it to annual public funding for various French institutions and organizations:
+ CCSD (HAL, ...): 0.4 M€
+ Génopole - 7.3 M€
+ ENSTA ParisTech - 20 M€
+ Ecole des ponts - 32 M€
+ ISAE - 44 M€
+ Ecole polytechnique - 110 M€
+ INRIA: 216 M€
CCSD with its HAL, Episciences and ScienceConf projects is a leading Open Science actor in France and Europe and its annual budget is only about 1% about 1% of the annual cost of Elsevier!
🤔 Critical Questions:
+ Why are we paying this exorbitant price for Open Access (OA) publishing with Elsevier while we have all the necessary infrastructure (HAL) and a will to share them without extra cost and an embargo period?
+ How will this agreement impact the future of scientific publishing and its costs?
🔍 Key Points:
+ France already has the necessary infrastructure for OA through HAL, without additional costs or embargoes thanks to the rights retention strategy adopted by France.
+ Despite opposition from some institutions (e.g., University of Lorraine), Elsevier has succeeded in selling its Gold OA under the guise of a "transformative agreement".
+ This is disappointing for Open Science, as France could have made all publications open without this agreement and its additional costs.
+ We could find a better use of this extra OA fee integrated in this contract, e.g. spend it on research funding and personnel.
⚠️ Hidden Costs: While we won't see direct OA publication fees as labs or researchers, these costs still exist. Be cautious when publishing OA articles, as the volume of these will likely influence negotiations in 4 years.
🌟 My Stance: I will not publish OA with Elsevier under this agreement. Instead, I encourage utilizing existing national infrastructures like HAL for true open access and publishing in Diamond Open Access journals like, for example, CR Mécanique and JTCAM: Journal of Theoretical, Computational and Applied Mechanics.
👩🔬 👨🔬 👩🏫 👨🏫 👩💻 👨💻
What are your thoughts?
How will this agreement impact your publishing practices?
Let's discuss the implications for the global scientific community.
🔗 For more information:
Systematic analysis of these transforming agreements https://lnkd.in/eEeEGfB4
#OpenScience #ScientificPublishing #Research #TransformativeAgreements #AcademicPublishing #JTCAM
