NEWS Germany vs Elsevier: universities win temporary journal access after refusing to pay fees (Nature)

During 2017, a consortium of 200 German research institutions was in conversations with the publishing group Elsevier to achieve a collective deal for full online access to Elsevier journals. This deal would have granted them access to about 2.500 journals for half the market price.  After they could not reach an agreement by December 2017, Elsevier decided to provide those institutions with unlimited online access until a solution could be crafted.  Experts regard this “as a milestone for global efforts to make results of publicly funded research immediately and freely available to scientist and the wider public”. (Summary by Isabel Mendoza) Nature  10.1038/d41586-018-00093-7