‘Get involved with publisher deals,’ university leaders told

More university rectors and presidents are participating in consortium negotiations with academic publishers, but there is “much room for improvement”, according to the European University Association.

In a survey of 31 consortia of research organisations in 30 European countries that entered talks with five large academic publishers in 2017 and 2018, 58 per cent of respondents claimed that university leaders participated in the negotiations, the EUA reported on 13 May.

This was up from 30 per cent in a previous survey. Nevertheless, the EUA said that university leaders “should be much more involved”. Universities “are yet to exercise market power commensurate with their financial contributions [to publisher deals]”, it said.