Transparency and openness to scientific publishing: the Finnish research organisations pay millions of euros annually to the large publishers | 6/13/16 | News and Events

"Open Science and Research Initiative announces the scientific publisher costs paid by Finnish universities and research organizations from 2010 to 2015. According to the data, the publisher costs have risen around ten percent per year.

By opening the publisher cost information we want to display the costs of the current publishing model. Science needs a way to publish research results and implement peer review in a cost-effective manner, which the current publishing model is not. Scientific publishing is a very profitable business — the largest scientific publishers draw profits of 30 - 40% and e.g. Elsevier's journal package price in 2015 is 1.5 times more than in 2007.  The research system has enough money to transform the current subscription model to open access.

Publications resulting from publicly funded research must be openly available: Recently several groups have taken a stand on open access and transparent subscription fees. Transparency in subscription fees is widely recognized as a measure in which it is time to move from visions to action (e.g. Amsterdam Call for Actions 2016 and The Alliance of Science Organizations in Germany)....

...In Finland, the FinELib consortium formed by higher education institutes, research institutes and libraries negotiates centralized license contracts for electronic resources of scientific publishers. The annual value of these contracts is slightly over EUR 18 million (2014). In addition, e-journal subscription fees paid outside FinELib amounted to approximately EUR 7 million in universities in 2014. At present a contract with i.a. Elsevier is under negotiation...."