More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the "greed" of publishing giant Elsevier.
The entire academic board of the journal Neuroimage, including professors from Oxford University, King’s College London and Cardiff University resigned after Elsevier refused to reduce publication charges.
Academics around the world have applauded what many hope is the start of a rebellion against the huge profit margins in academic publishing, which outweigh those made by Apple, Google and Amazon.
Neuroimage, the leading publication globally for brain-imaging research, is one of many journals that are now "open access" rather than sitting behind a subscription paywall.
But its charges to authors reflect its prestige, and academics now pay over £2700 ($NZ5370) for a research paper to be published.
The former editors say this is "unethical" and bears no relation to the costs involved.
Prof Chris Chambers, head of brain stimulation at Cardiff University and one of the resigning team, said "Elsevier preys on the academic community, claiming huge profits while adding little value to science".
He urged fellow scientists to turn their backs on the Elsevier journal and submit papers to a nonprofit open-access journal which the team was setting up.
"All Elsevier cares about is money and this will cost them a lot of money. They just got too greedy. The academic community can withdraw our consent to be exploited at any time. That time is now."
Elsevier, a Dutch company that claims to publish 25% of the world’s scientific papers, reported a 10% increase in its revenue to £2.9 billion last year.
But it is the profit margins, nearing 40% according to its 2019 accounts, which anger academics most.
The big scientific publishers keep costs low because academics write up their research — typically funded by charities and the public purse — for free.
They "peer review" each other’s work to verify it is worth publishing for free, and academic editors collate it for free or for a small stipend.
Academics are then often charged thousands of pounds to have their work published in open-access journals, or universities will pay very high subscription charges.
Stephen Smith, professor of biomedical engineering at Oxford University and formerly editor-in-chief at Neuroimage, said "academics really don’t like the way things are, but individuals feel powerless to get the huge publishers to start behaving more ethically".
A spokesman for Elsevier said "we value our editors very highly and are disappointed [with the resignations], especially as we have been engaging constructively with them over the last couple of years". — Guardian News and Media
By Anna Fazackerley
