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Lower Fees Sought

A UK university group is calling on Elsevier to lower the cost of its journals and to increase the portion of articles that are freely accessible, the Financial Times reports.

It adds that the not-for-profit group Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is negotiating with Elsevier on behalf of about 160 UK educational institutes toward this goal, which it notes comes as universities grapple with decreased income and a greater push toward open-access publishing. 

"No one's questioning the value of Elsevier's content, but we can't afford to keep paying out money for a subscription that is not compliant with open-access principles whilst the costs are growing without real increased value to us, that's just not sustainable," Lancaster University's Andrew Barker tells FT.

Elsevier notes, according to FT, that it is "committed to establishing a transformative agreement with JISC and universities across the UK" and that it "looks forward to constructive conversations." 

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