Report lifts lid on cost of subscription deals with publishers | Times Higher Education (THE)

"A switch to open access could save hundreds of millions of euros, says analysis from the European University Association

European universities and research organisations could save hundreds of millions of euros a year by switching to an open access publishing system, a new analysis of subscription deals with publishers has concluded. The report by the European University Association (EUA) warns of growing publisher profit margins as research budgets are squeezed – and comes as university consortia in France and Germany have stopped paying some of the world’s biggest academic publishers for journal access after contract negotiations broke down.

Big Deals Survey Report: The First Mapping of Major Scientific Publishing Contracts in Europe surveyed university negotiators from 28 European countries in 2016 and 2017 to find out the cost and terms of their largest contracts with publishers. Although the responses are anonymised by country and publisher, the results shed light on deal terms that are often kept under wraps. Overall, research institutions spent €421 million (£367 million) a year on subscription deals to journals, e-books and databases. The vast majority of this (€384 million) was spent on journals, based on cost data for 66 contracts. Sixty-five per cent of this expenditure went to Elsevier, the world’s largest academic publisher, while 22.4 per cent went to Wiley..."