The cost of knowledge

The Cost of Knowledge is a boycott initiative initiated by mathematician William Timothy Gowers in 2012 against the science publisher Elsevier . Gowers calls on all scientists to boycott the journals of the Elsevier group.

history

For some time now, it has bothered many scientists that the Elsevier journals are sold at particularly high prices.

The most important point of criticism is that although the research, the work of the editors and reviewers, and ultimately the acquisition of the journals are largely financed from public funds, the publications are not freely accessible to everyone.

The barrel finally overflowed with the latest business practice of the publisher, according to which libraries can only subscribe to magazines in "bundles". Libraries have to order Elsevier front magazines such as the Cell journals in a package with a number of unwanted slacks.

boycott

At the beginning of 2012, the scientist Gowers started his own homepage under the title The Cost of Knowledge . On this platform he primarily criticizes Elsevier's practice of only selling scientific journals as a bundle. The main buyers of the journals, libraries, are forced by this bundling of journals to purchase not only the desired journals but also those that are not of interest to them. Another major point of criticism was that the publisher supports US legislation. The Research Works Act (RWA) , for example, prohibits US public research institutions from freely publishing their results. Elsevier is not the only publisher that is “guilty”, according to Gowers. But the publishing house is the worst offender , i.e. the publisher that uses the harmful practices most aggressively.

The initiative is essentially based on three allegations against Elsevier:

Elsevier charges excessive subscription prices for its specialist journals.
In order to receive the journals they need, the research institutes have to purchase packages of journals that also contain journals that are not originally of interest.
Elsevier is engaged in massive lobbying to prevent free access to scientific publications ( Open Access ).

Feedback and reactions

As a result of the initiative, more than 16,000 scientists from various disciplines have now committed themselves not to publish in Elsevier's journals, nor to work as editors or reviewers. Scientists from different disciplines sign the voluntary commitment and thus accept a certain limitation for their reputation in the scientific community, which, according to the mainstream understanding of science, results from the number of specialist articles in “leading science journals”.

In addition to Tim Gowers, the mathematicians Ingrid Daubechies , Marie Farge , Juan J. Manfredi , Terence Tao , Wendelin Werner , Scott Aaronson , László Lovász and John Baez, who are renowned in specialist circles, have now signed the appeal.

The Austrian FWF - Fund for the Promotion of Scientific Research considers the initiative's concerns to be fundamentally justified, but added four points:

Publishing houses, including commercial ones, provide an important service for quality assurance in research, which must also be adequately paid. What is decisive, however, is that, on the one hand, sufficient diversity and thus competition among publishers is ensured and, on the other hand, scientific knowledge is made freely accessible to everyone as a “ public good ”.
The criticized sales practices affect not only Elsevier, but a number of commercial publishers and professional associations.
Criticizing the publishers alone will not be enough. The FWF has therefore been supporting a change in the financing model for years: from the subscription system for specialist journals to open access journals, which are financed by authors, research institutions, specialist societies and sponsors, among others.
Ultimately, it would also be up to the scientists, as authors, editors and reviewers, to change the publication model. There are already ideas and role models for successful open access models.

In May 2012, the mathematics faculty of the Technical University of Munich announced that from 2013 it would no longer receive journals from Elsevier.