For-profit journal giant Elsevier is diversifying quick – the Trump Administration might have something to do with it

There is open-access excitement over an anticipated Trump Administration executive order for immediate open access to peer-reviewed articles based on federally funded research. Federal government funding agencies already have OA policies but an Oval Office edict would be a big blow to the pay to read journal establishment. The proposal is said to be similar to the European (pay to publish) Plan S.

Elsevier makes a motza from publishing (a 35 per cent margin in 2018) but appears to accept that the golden-goose is cooking. It is striking OA deals of sorts (open access, but pay to publish) all over Europe, and it is starting to do so in the US. And to embed itself in the research process it is buying up service providers and data analytics organisations, recently picking-up Science-Metrix, which creates bibliometric analysis and research evaluation, using Elsevier’s Scopus database.