Thirty academics from the University of California system have said they will no longer provide editorial services to publisher Elsevier’s highly influential Cell Press journals.
In a letter published Aug. 7, the scientists said they would not resume their roles on the editorial boards of the Elsevier journals until a new “big deal” is reached between the university system and the publisher.
Among the signatories of the letter are Jennifer Doudna, co-inventor of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, and Elizabeth Backburn, co-recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Negotiations to draw up a new journal subscription deal between Elsevier and the UC system broke down in early 2019.
The UC system had been seeking a new kind of subscription deal that would reduce the $10-million-a-year cost and incorporate fees for academics to publish open-access articles.
Academics and students in the UC system lost instant access to the latest Elsevier research in July.
