Three UK research-intensive universities have revealed they will not be renewing subscriptions to Elsevier journals amid concerns over the cost of a nationally agreed deal.
Last month the sector IT body Jisc, which has been leading talks with the “big five” academic publishers – Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Sage – on behalf of the UK sector, announced negotiations had successfully concluded after nine months of talks.
While Jisc said the deals represented “strong, market-leading offers that maximise value and deliver savings compared to historic pricing”, several universities have chosen not to take up subscriptions with the world’s largest publisher Elsevier, which runs more than 2,800 journals.
In a statement, the University of Kent confirmed it is “not renewing the…