\n<\/p>\n
Three more U.K. universities have confirmed they are not taking subscriptions to Elsevier journals, with one Russell Group institution hitting out at the \u201cfinancially unsustainable\u201d terms of the nationally agreed deal.<\/p>\n
In a statement published Jan. 27, the University of Sheffield revealed it was signing up to three-year deals with Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, Wiley and Sage but was walking away from an offer by Elsevier, the world\u2019s biggest academic publisher.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, the Elsevier deal continues to be financially unsustainable and we will not be in a position to subscribe to this deal,\u201d it explained.<\/p>\n
Lancaster University and the University of Surrey have also confirmed they will not sign another deal with Elsevier, joining the universities of Essex, Kent and Sussex among those walking away from direct access to the imprint\u2019s 2,800 journals.<\/p>\n
Both institutions added they would take up deals with the four other main publishers.<\/p>\n
Sheffield and Surrey were among three U.K. universities to terminate their previous deal with Elsevier at the start of 2025. The third institution\u2014 the University of York\u2014has not yet commented publicly on whether it is taking up Elsevier\u2019s revised offer for 2026 onwards, but its library site indicates researchers do not have access to the publisher\u2019s titles.<\/p>\n
In December, the sector IT body Jisc, which has been leading talks with the \u201cbig five\u201d academic publishers on behalf of the U.K. sector, announced it had concluded negotiations after nine months of talks. While many universities, including the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh and Oxford, have confirmed they are taking up all the deals, some institutions have chosen to reject the offer from Elsevier, which publishes Cell<\/em> and The Lancet<\/em>, on cost grounds.<\/p>\n According to Sheffield\u2019s statement, its decision to opt out of the Elsevier deal reflects \u201cproposals agreed with the University Executive Board to significantly reduce library spending on resources over a three-year period in response both to financial pressures and ongoing concerns about the sustainability of the commercial scientific publishing model.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe main focus for the start of 2026 has been on the largest \u2018big deals\u2019 (including Sage, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley) which expired in December 2025,\u201d it continued, adding it \u201creviews all subscriptions for value for money on an annual basis.\u201d<\/p>\n A Lancaster University spokesperson said: \u201cWhile agreements with Sage, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley for 2026 onwards are in place following Jisc negotiations, [the university\u2019s] deal with Elsevier has not been renewed.\u201d<\/p>\n Confirming its non-renewal of the Elsevier deal late January, the University of Essex said it was \u201cunhappy with the price increases, and Elsevier\u2019s unwillingness to commit to a shift toward a more sustainable model of open access publishing.\u201d<\/p>\n Universities had been seeking price reductions of between 5\u00a0and 15\u00a0percent on the $152\u00a0million spent annually with these five publishing houses when their deals expired at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n In a statement, Elsevier said it was \u201cdelighted to see a high level of participation in our agreement across the sector, while recognizing that financial pressures mean a handful of institutions will need to work with us individually to assess their options.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTogether with Jisc, we continue to advance open access in ways that are sustainable and equitable, while ensuring U.K. researchers have access to trusted, high-quality content and innovative tools that support discovery and societal impact,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three more U.K. universities have confirmed they are not taking subscriptions to Elsevier journals, with one Russell Group institution hitting out at the \u201cfinancially unsustainable\u201d terms of the nationally agreed deal. In a statement published Jan. 27, the University of Sheffield revealed it was signing up to three-year deals with Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[696,9401,22901,397,489],"class_list":{"0":"post-43939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-deal","9":"tag-decline","10":"tag-elsevier","11":"tag-u-k","12":"tag-universities"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}