Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has ended its journal subscription contract negotiations with Elsevier, according to the school.

It adds that the publisher did not provide a contract that was in line with the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts, which advocates for the open sharing of research and educational material. Part of that policy, Inside Higher Ed notes, is the requirement that researchers must be able to retain copyright of their work, and it suspects that “may have been a sticking point in MIT’s negotiations with Elsevier.”

“I am disappointed that we were not able to reach a contract with Elsevier that honors the principles of the MIT Framework, but I am proud knowing that the MIT community — as well as hundreds of colleagues across the country — stand by the importance of these principles for advancing the public good and the progress of science,” Chris Bourg, director of the MIT Libraries, says in a statement. “In the face of these unprecedented global challenges, equitable and open access to knowledge is more critical than ever.”

Other institutions like the University of California as well as the State University of New York and the University of North Carolina have similarly ended contract negotiations with Elsevier, IHE adds.