Statement against Elsevier’s sharing policy

Organizations around the world led by SPARC and COAR denounce Elsevier’s new policy that impedes open access and sharing of research publications.

Elsevier’s new policy announced in April 2015, claims to advance sharing, but actually does the opposite. This policy is in direct conflict with the global trend towards open access and serves only to dilute the benefits of openly sharing research results.

• The policy imposes embargo periods of up to 48 months for some journals.
• It requires authors to apply a “non-commercial and no derivative works” license for each article deposited into a repository, greatly inhibiting the re-use value of these articles.
• The policy applies to “all articles previously published and those published in the future”

Read and sign the petition against Elsevier’s new ‘sharing policy’

In the article Elsevier is strongly urged to reconsider this policy and  other organizations and individuals encouraged to express their opinions.

The EUI Library signed the petition on 26 May 2015.

Original announcement of the ‘sharing policy’ by Elsevier