One mathematician’s boycott of megapublisher Elsevier has fueled enough momentum to end a U.S. bill aimed at banning open access policies.
Cambridge professor Timothy Gowers launched his personal boycott of the scientific publisher in a blog post Jan. 21, protesting the company’s “exorbitantly high prices” and its support for the Research Works Act, which would have curbed public access to research results from work funded by federal agencies such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Within weeks, more than 8,000 researchers around the world followed Gowers’ lead and publicly pledged to refrain from publishing, refereeing or undertaking editorial work for any Elsevier-owned journals, “unless they radically change how they operate.”
The major grievances outlined in the “
Cost of Knowledge” boycott are the rising costs of journal subscriptions; Elsevier’s business practice of forcing academic libraries to purchase bundles of journals they don’t want in order to avoid paying the exorbitant list prices for the ones they need; and the company’s lobbying efforts for proposed laws that would limit the free exchange of information such as the Stop Online Piracy Act, the Protect Intellectual Property Act, and the now dropped Research Works Act.
On Feb. 27, Elsevier responded to the swell of mobilization from scholars by announcing its withdrawal of support for the controversial Research Works legislation, citing concerns over inconsistency with Elsevier’s “long-standing support for expanding options for free and low-cost public access to scholarly literature.”
Later that same day the bill was withdrawn.
David Fewer, director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, says the withdrawal of the bill is “a welcome rejection to a market power trying to flex power,” adding the Research Works Act was “inconsistent with academic freedom and freedom of expression.”
“One the one hand, it is pleasing to see the academic community come together in such a way,” said Fewer. “However, it bothers me that academics had to stage a boycott to be heard.”
Elsevier, which publishes more than 20,000 products and services, including textbooks and high-impact journals like The Lancet, may have pulled its support for the Research Works Act, but it still pledges to “continue to join with those many other nonprofit and commercial publishers and scholarly societies that oppose repeated efforts to extend mandates through legislation.”
Because of this, academics plan to continue to boycott the publishing giant and rally support for a counter-bill now before both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate — the Federal Research Public Access Act — which would require “federal agencies with an extramural research budget of $100 million or more to make federally-funded research available for free online access by the general public, no later than six months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal.”
No overarching open access policy or legislation currently exists for Canada’s research granting agencies.
Guiding principles on open access drafted by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research state: “Publicly funded research should be as accessible as possible in order to maximize the economic, social, cultural and health benefits for Canadians.”
Since 2008, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research requires funding recipients to “ensure that all research papers generated from CIHR funded projects are freely accessible through the publisher’s website or an online repository within six months of publication.”
But a 2011 brief on open access publication by the tri-granting agencies recommends continued support of infrastructure, such as institutional repositories, to promote the availability of peer-reviewed scholarly research.
Should Canadians be concerned about the battle over U.S. attempts to impose restrictions on tax-payer-funded research?
Fewer says it’s possible the substance of U.S. laws could manifest in Canada.
“There’s no limit to the shame of rights holders in demanding longer and stronger rights for themselves while limiting users’ rights to access public research,” he said. “But I have faith our legislators will see this type of rent-seeking behaviour for what it is.”