UK national negotiations with Elsevier: it seems we’re not messing around. June 7, 2016

A confidential internal email has come into my hands, from Bristol University, regarding the UK’s national negotiations with Elsevier. I think it’s of general interest.

(I should say that, although my own affiliation is also with Bristol, this is a complete coincidence: for avoidance of doubt, the person I received this from is not at Bristol.)

Date: 7 June 2016 at 09:00

Subject: Fwd: Elsevier ScienceDirect Negotiations – Briefing for Schools

To: Heads of Schools, Faculty Managers

Topic: Elsevier Negotiations – Confidential within the University

Dear Colleagues,

This email is to advise you that the UK university sector has entered national negotiations with the publisher Elsevier for renewal of the subscription journal package ScienceDirect.

This is the largest and most costly journal agreement which universities in the UK subscript to, accounting for roughly 40% of annual spend by sector on major journal agreements. ScienceDirect journals are most heavily used by STEM/M subjects, but also has relevance to some subjects in the social sciences and arts. Many Bristol authors are active on Elsevier editorial panels and peer review process. The cost of above inflation journal price rises is an issue that affects all library users as it impacts on our purchasing power for all subjects. For this reason, we have provided a briefing on the negotiations below and ask you to circulate this to staff in your School for information.

If you or your colleagues have any questions, please contact your Subject Librarian in the first instance. Further updates will be circulated at significant milestones in the negotiations.

With good wishes,

Jess (Jessica Gardner, Director of Library Services) and Stuart (Stuart Hunt, Deputy Director)

Briefing for Schools: Elsevier ScienceDirect Negotiations

The UK university sector has entered national negotiations with the publisher Elsevier for renewal of the subscription journal package ScienceDirect.

Why this negotiation is important

The Elsevier ScienceDirect agreement is the largest journal agreement which universities in the UK and globally subscribe to, accounting for roughly 40% of annual spend by the sector on major journal agreements. The number of libraries and level of expenditure means that this is likely to be one of the biggest single contracts that Elsevier negotiates with an individual consortium anywhere in the world. The current UK agreement runs to the end of December 2016.

Universities in the UK use ScienceDirect material heavily but:

We also make very substantial cash and non-cash contributions to Elsevier across the sector

Confidentiality contract clauses mean there is no price transparency for public funds

The lack of transparency means there is disparity of pricing across the sector based on historic print spend dating back to 1999

Negotiation process

There is a national negotiation process in place with a negotiating team that includes experienced JISC Collections staff, senior Library Directors from UCL and Liverpool and two Vice Chancellors (Professor Sir David Eastwood, Birmingham, and Professor Sir Ian Diamond, Aberdeen).

The negotiating team have clear objectives on price, transparency and open access offsetting practice set in consultation with Library Directors across the UK. The initial proposal from Elsevier in May 2016 was for a 5% per annum increase on the cost of ScienceDirect and no off-setting costs for Gold open access expenditure. This has been rejected by the negotiating team.

Contingency plans will be used to offer access to essential research materials in the event we are unable to reach an acceptable agreement with Elsevier.

Contextual information on price

The UK academic sector makes a very large cash contribution to Elsevier, at £38million equivalent to about 3% of the Hefce quality-related (QR) grant allocation and 1% of the entire Hefce grant allocation to universities. The sector as a whole is paying 12.5% more for ScienceDirect than it did in 2012 as a result of price increases of between 1%-4% year on year.

At the same time, the UK makes substantial non-cash contributions to Elsevier, providing about 6% of the editorial board members for Elsevier and a significant contribution to peer-review estimated to be equivalent to as much as £25million.

Elsevier has a profit margin of 35% (£700million) and is the only one of the 5 big academic publishers not to have put in place any arrangements to limit the additional cost of Gold OA in its hybrid journals for UK academics.

Future Updates

We will provide future updates for academic Schools when key milestones in the negotiation are reached.

If you require further information, please contact your Subject Librarian. A full list of subjects and Subject Librarians is available at:http://www.bristol.ac.uk/library/support/subjects/

To me, the most significant part of this discussion is the statement “Contingency plans will be used to offer access to essential research materials in the event we are unable to reach an acceptable agreement with Elsevier.” That suggests to me that the UK is serious about this negotiation. We are not just going to Elsevier cap in hand begging for mercy; we are going in hard, prepared to reach no agreement at all rather than a bad agreement.