Elsevier
Encyclopedia
Elsevier (ˈɛlzəvir) is a publishing company which publishes medical and scientific literature. It is a part of the Reed Elsevier
group. Based in Amsterdam
, the company has operations in the United Kingdom, USA and elsewhere.
Elsevier took its name from the Dutch publishing house Elzevir
, which, however, had no connection with the present company. The Elzevir family operated as booksellers and publishers in the Netherlands
. Its founder, Lodewijk Elzevir
(1542–1617), lived in Leiden and established the business in 1580.
Elsevier was founded in 1880. Leading products include journals such as The Lancet
and Cell
, books such as Gray's Anatomy
, the ScienceDirect
collection of electronic journals, the Trends
and Current Opinion
series of journals, and the online citation database Scopus
. Its free researcher collaboration tool, 2collab
, launched in 2007, was discontinued in 2011.
The company publishes 250,000 articles a year in 2,000 journals. Its archives contain seven million publications. Total yearly downloads amount to 240 million.
In revenue, Elsevier accounts for 28% of the Reed Elsevier group (₤1.5b of 5.4 billions in 2006). In operating profit
s, it represents a bigger fraction of 44% (₤395 of 880 millions). Adjusted operating profits rose by 10% from 2005 to 2006.
members, 300,000 reviewers and 600,000 authors for its publications. The company publishes 2,000 journals and 20,000 books.
It is headed by Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) Erik Engstrom.
s and cover the health
, life, physical and social sciences.
The target markets are academic and government research institutions, corporate research labs, booksellers, librarians, scientific researchers, authors, and editors.
Flagship products and services include: VirtualE, ScienceDirect
, Scopus
, Scirus
, EMBASE
, Engineering Village, Compendex
, Cell
, SciVal Spotlight.
There are the following subsidiary imprints, many of them previously independent publishing companies: Academic Press
, Architectural Press, Butterworth-Heinemann
, CMP
, Digital Press, Elsevier, Focal Press
, Gulf Professional Publishing, Morgan Kaufmann, Newnes, Pergamon Press
, Pergamon Flexible Learning, Syngress Publishing.
The target market is physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, medical and nursing students and schools, medical researchers, pharmaceutical companies
, hospitals, and research establishments. It publishes in 12 languages including English, German, French Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese and Chinese.
Flagship publications include: The Consult series (FirstCONSULT, PathCONSULT, NursingCONSULT, MDConsult, StudentCONSULT), Virtual Clinical Excursions, and major reference works such as Gray's Anatomy
, Nelson Pediatrics, Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, Netter
's Atlas of Human Anatomy, and online versions of many journals including The Lancet
.
There are the following subsidiary imprints, previously independent publishing companies: Saunders
, Mosby
, Churchill Livingstone
, Butterworth-Heinemann
, Hanley & Belfus, Bailliere-Tindall, Urban & Fischer, Masson
.
's senate singled out Elsevier as an example of a publisher of journals which might be "disproportionately expensive compared to their educational and research value" and which librarians should consider dropping, and encouraged its faculty "not to contribute articles or editorial or review efforts to publishers and journals that engage in exploitive or exorbitant pricing". Similar guidelines and criticism of Elsevier's pricing policies have been passed by the University of California
, Harvard University
and Duke University
. The elevated pricing of field journals in economics, most of which are published by Elsevier, was one of the motivations that moved the American Economic Association
to launch the American Economic Journal
in 2009.
at a much lower price, while Elsevier continued publication with a new editorial board and a slightly different name (the Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming).
In 2002, dissatisfaction at Elsevier's pricing policies caused the European Economic Association
to terminate an agreement with Elsevier, which designated Elsevier's European Economic Review
as the official journal of the association. The EEA launched a new journal, the Journal of the European Economic Association
.
At the end of 2003, the entire editorial board of the Journal of Algorithms resigned to start ACM Transactions on Algorithms with a different, lower priced publisher, at the suggestion of Journal of Algorithms founder Donald Knuth
.
The same happened in 2005 to the International Journal of Solids and Structures, whose editors resigned to start the Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures. However, a new editorial board was quickly established and the journal continues in apparently unaltered form with editors D.A. Hills (Oxford University) and Stelios Kyriakides (University of Texas at Austin
).
On August 10, 2006, the entire editorial board of the distinguished mathematical journal
Topology
handed in their resignation, again because of stalled negotiations with Elsevier to lower the subscription price. This board has now launched the new Journal of Topology at a far lower price, under the auspices of the London Mathematical Society
.
The French École Normale Supérieure
has stopped having Elsevier publish the journal Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure
(as of 2008).
The Lancet
in September 2005 sharply criticized the journal's owner and publisher, Reed Elsevier, for its participation in the international arms trade
. Specifically, Reed Exhibitions organized the Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition (DSEi), a large arms fair in the U.K. The authors, appealing to the Hippocratic oath
, called for the publisher to "divest itself of all business interests that threaten human, and especially civilian, health and well-being."
In the March 2007 issue of the The Lancet, leading medical centers including the UK Royal College of Physicians
urged Reed Elsevier to sever weapons ties. Doctors spoke out against Reed's role in the involvement of the organizing of exhibitions for the arms trade. Reed Elsevier’s chief executive responded in June 2007 with a written statement agreeing to do so, welcomed by authors of the petition, announcing that it would sell the part of the company which handled military trade shows
. The sale was completed in May 2008.
for libel, claiming that his reputation had been damaged by their November 2008 article about his retirement, which included statements that Nature had been unable to verify his claimed affiliations with certain international institutions. The suit came to trial in November 2011, with El Naschie representing himself.
was being sued by a user of Vioxx, the plaintiff alleged that Merck had paid Elsevier to publish the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which had the appearance of being a peer-reviewed academic journal
but in fact contained only articles favourable to Merck drugs. Merck has described the journal as a "complimentary publication", denied claims that articles within it were ghost written by Merck, and stated that the articles were all reprinted from peer-reviewed medical journals. In May 2009, Elsevier Health Sciences CEO Hansen released a statement regarding Australia-based sponsored journals, conceding that these were "sponsored article compilation publications, on behalf of pharmaceutical clients, that were made to look like journals and lacked the proper disclosures." The statement acknowledged that this "was an unacceptable practice." The Scientist
reported that, according to an Elsevier spokesperson, six sponsored publications "were put out by their Australia office and bore the Excerpta Medica
imprint from 2000 to 2005", namely the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, the Australasian Journal of General Practice, the Australasian Journal of Neurology, the Australasian Journal of Cardiology, the Australasian Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, and the Australasian Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine. Excerpta Medica was a "strategic medical communications agency" run by Elsevier, according to the imprint's web page. On October 7, 2010, Excerpta Medica was acquired by Adelphi Worldwide.
"The firm [Elsevier] offered a $25 Amazon voucher to academics who contributed to the textbook Clinical Psychology if they would go on Amazon.com
and Barnes & Noble
(a large US books retailer) and give it five stars." Elsevier said that "encouraging interested parties to post book reviews isn't outside the norm in scholarly publishing, nor is it wrong to offer to nominally compensate people for their time. But in all instances the request should be unbiased, with no incentives for a positive review, and that's where this particular e-mail went too far", and that it was a mistake by a marketing employee.
in publishing. Elsevier uses its imprints to market to different consumer segments. Many of them have previously been the company names of publishers that were purchased by Reed Elsevier.
Reed Elsevier
Reed Elsevier is a publisher and information provider operating in the science, medical, legal, risk and business sectors. It is listed on several of the world's major stock exchanges. It is a FTSE 100 and FT500 Global company...
group. Based in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, the company has operations in the United Kingdom, USA and elsewhere.
Elsevier took its name from the Dutch publishing house Elzevir
House of Elzevir
Elzevir is the name of a celebrated family of Dutch booksellers, publishers, and printers of the 17th and early 18th centuries. The duodecimo series of "Elzevirs" became very famous and very desirable among bibliophiles, who sought to obtain the tallest and freshest copies of these tiny...
, which, however, had no connection with the present company. The Elzevir family operated as booksellers and publishers in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. Its founder, Lodewijk Elzevir
Lodewijk Elzevir
Lodewijk Elzevir , originally Lodewijk or Louis Elsevier or Elzevier, was a significant Dutch printer...
(1542–1617), lived in Leiden and established the business in 1580.
Elsevier was founded in 1880. Leading products include journals such as The Lancet
The Lancet
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
and Cell
Cell (journal)
Cell is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing research papers across a broad range of disciplines within the life sciences. Areas covered include molecular biology, cell biology, systems biology, stem cells, developmental biology, genetics and genomics, proteomics, cancer research,...
, books such as Gray's Anatomy
Gray's Anatomy
Gray's Anatomy is an English-language human anatomy textbook originally written by Henry Gray. The book is widely regarded as an extremely influential work on the subject, and has continued to be revised and republished from its initial publication in 1858 to the present day...
, the ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect is one of the largest online collections of published scientific research in the world. It is operated by the publisher Elsevier and contains nearly 10 million articles from over 2,500 journals and over 6,000 e-books, reference works, book series and handbooks issued by Elsevier...
collection of electronic journals, the Trends
Trends (journals)
Trends is a series of scientific journals owned by Elsevier that publish review articles in a range of areas of biology. They are currently part of Elsevier's Cell Press group of journals....
and Current Opinion
Current Opinion
Current Opinion is a publisher of review journals on various subjects of biology owned by Elsevier . Each issue, published every two months, contains one or more themed ‘sections’ edited by scientists who specialise in the field and invite authors to contribute reviews aimed at experts and...
series of journals, and the online citation database Scopus
Scopus
Scopus, officially named SciVerse Scopus, is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It covers nearly 18,000 titles from over 5,000 international publishers, including coverage of 16,500 peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical,...
. Its free researcher collaboration tool, 2collab
2collab
2collab was a scientific social network by Elsevier, launched in 2007 and discontinued on 15 April 2011.2collab was an online collaborative research tool that enabled researchers to share bookmarks, references or any linked materials with their peers and colleagues...
, launched in 2007, was discontinued in 2011.
The company publishes 250,000 articles a year in 2,000 journals. Its archives contain seven million publications. Total yearly downloads amount to 240 million.
In revenue, Elsevier accounts for 28% of the Reed Elsevier group (₤1.5b of 5.4 billions in 2006). In operating profit
Earnings before interest and taxes
In accounting and finance, earnings before interest and taxes is a measure of a firm's profit that excludes interest and income tax expenses. Operating income is the difference between operating revenues and operating expenses...
s, it represents a bigger fraction of 44% (₤395 of 880 millions). Adjusted operating profits rose by 10% from 2005 to 2006.
| Reed Elsevier Annual Report 2006 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Turnover | € 7,935 million (+5% from '05) | |
| Pre-tax profit | € 1,060 million (+3% from '05) | |
| Elsevier Annual Report 2006 | ||
| Turnover | € 2,236 million (+6.6% from '05) | |
| Pre-tax profit | € 581 million (+0.5% from '05) | |
| see Elsevier reports; turnover Revenue In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover.... = revenue; profits not adjusted |
||
Company figures
Elsevier employs more than 7,000 people in over 70 offices across 24 countries. In addition, there are 7,000 journal editors, 70,000 editorial boardEditorial board
The editorial board is a group of people, usually at a publication, who dictate the tone and direction the publication's editorial policy will take.- Board makeup :...
members, 300,000 reviewers and 600,000 authors for its publications. The company publishes 2,000 journals and 20,000 books.
It is headed by Chief Executive Officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
(CEO) Erik Engstrom.
Elsevier's operating divisions
Elsevier has two distinct operating divisions: Science & Technology and Health Sciences. Products and services of both include electronic and print versions of journals, textbooks and reference workReference work
A reference work is a compendium of information, usually of a specific type, compiled in a book for ease of reference. That is, the information is intended to be quickly found when needed. Reference works are usually referred to for particular pieces of information, rather than read beginning to end...
s and cover the health
Healthcare science
Healthcare science is the applied science dealing with the application of science, technology, engineering or mathematics to the delivery of healthcare....
, life, physical and social sciences.
Science & Technology
Ron Mobed is the CEO of Science & Technology.The target markets are academic and government research institutions, corporate research labs, booksellers, librarians, scientific researchers, authors, and editors.
Flagship products and services include: VirtualE, ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect is one of the largest online collections of published scientific research in the world. It is operated by the publisher Elsevier and contains nearly 10 million articles from over 2,500 journals and over 6,000 e-books, reference works, book series and handbooks issued by Elsevier...
, Scopus
Scopus
Scopus, officially named SciVerse Scopus, is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It covers nearly 18,000 titles from over 5,000 international publishers, including coverage of 16,500 peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical,...
, Scirus
Scirus
Scirus is a comprehensive science-specific search engine. Like CiteSeerX and Google Scholar, it is focused on scientific information. Unlike CiteSeerX, Scirus is not only for computer sciences and IT and not all of the results include full text. It also sends its scientific search results to...
, EMBASE
EMBASE
Embase is an online information source of published literature designed to supportinformation managers and pharmacovigilance in complying with the regulatoryrequirements of a licensed drug. Through its unique and comprehensive content coverage,...
, Engineering Village, Compendex
Compendex
Compendex, the computerized version of the Engineering Index, is a comprehensive engineering bibliographic database. Compendex is an index of engineering materials started in 1884, compiled by hand under the original title of Engineering Index. As Compendex it is now published by Elsevier. The...
, Cell
Cell (journal)
Cell is a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing research papers across a broad range of disciplines within the life sciences. Areas covered include molecular biology, cell biology, systems biology, stem cells, developmental biology, genetics and genomics, proteomics, cancer research,...
, SciVal Spotlight.
There are the following subsidiary imprints, many of them previously independent publishing companies: Academic Press
Academic Press
Academic Press is an academic book publisher. Originally independent, it was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier bought Harcourt in 2000, and Academic Press is now an imprint of Elsevier....
, Architectural Press, Butterworth-Heinemann
Butterworth-Heinemann
Butterworth–Heinemann is a UK-based international publishing company specialized in professional information and learning materials for higher education and professional training, in printed and electronic forms...
, CMP
CMP
- Medicine :* Cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease* Chondromalacia Patellae, a degenerative condition of the knee cap * Chronic myofascial pain, also known as Myofascial pain syndrome, a condition associated with hypersensitive muscular trigger points...
, Digital Press, Elsevier, Focal Press
Focal Press
Focal Press is a publisher of media technology books and it is an imprint of Elsevier. It was founded in 1938 by Andor Kraszna-Krausz, a Hungarian photographer who immigrated to England in 1937 and eventually published over 1,200 books on photography....
, Gulf Professional Publishing, Morgan Kaufmann, Newnes, Pergamon Press
Pergamon Press
Pergamon Press was an Oxford-based publishing house, founded by Paul Rosbaud and Robert Maxwell, which published scientific and medical books and journals. It is now an imprint of Elsevier....
, Pergamon Flexible Learning, Syngress Publishing.
Health Sciences
Michael Hansen is the CEO of Health Sciences.The target market is physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, medical and nursing students and schools, medical researchers, pharmaceutical companies
Pharmaceutical company
The pharmaceutical industry develops, produces, and markets drugs licensed for use as medications. Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to deal in generic and/or brand medications and medical devices...
, hospitals, and research establishments. It publishes in 12 languages including English, German, French Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese and Chinese.
Flagship publications include: The Consult series (FirstCONSULT, PathCONSULT, NursingCONSULT, MDConsult, StudentCONSULT), Virtual Clinical Excursions, and major reference works such as Gray's Anatomy
Gray's Anatomy
Gray's Anatomy is an English-language human anatomy textbook originally written by Henry Gray. The book is widely regarded as an extremely influential work on the subject, and has continued to be revised and republished from its initial publication in 1858 to the present day...
, Nelson Pediatrics, Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, Netter
Frank H. Netter
Frank H. Netter was an artist, physician, and most notably, a leading medical illustrator. He was also a Fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine.-Early life, training, and medical career:...
's Atlas of Human Anatomy, and online versions of many journals including The Lancet
The Lancet
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
.
There are the following subsidiary imprints, previously independent publishing companies: Saunders
Saunders (publisher)
Saunders is an American publisher. It is currently an imprint of Elsevier.Formerly independent, the W. B. Saunders company was acquired by CBS in 1968, who added it to their publishing division Holt, Rinehart & Winston. When CBS exited the publishing field in 1986, it sold the academic publishing...
, Mosby
Mosby (publisher)
Mosby is an American publisher of textbooks and scholarly journals. It is currently an imprint of Elsevier.Formerly independent, C. V. Mosby, Inc. was acquired by Times Mirror in 1967. Harcourt General acquired Mosby from Times Mirror in 1998; Harcourt General was purchased by Reed Elsevier in 2000....
, Churchill Livingstone
Churchill Livingstone
Churchill Livingstone is an imprint of a medical publishing company owned by Elsevier Ltd, but previously owned by Harcourt and Pearson. It was formed in 1971 from the merger of E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh, Scotland, and J & A Churchill, London, England. It is but now integrated with the rest of...
, Butterworth-Heinemann
Butterworth-Heinemann
Butterworth–Heinemann is a UK-based international publishing company specialized in professional information and learning materials for higher education and professional training, in printed and electronic forms...
, Hanley & Belfus, Bailliere-Tindall, Urban & Fischer, Masson
Masson (publisher)
Masson was a French publisher specialised in medical and scientific collections. In 1987, Masson purchased Armand Colin. In turn, it became part of the City Group in 1994...
.
Criticism and controversies
In recent years the subscription rates charged by the company for its journals have been criticised; some very large journals (those with more than 5000 articles) charge subscription prices as high as $14,000, far above average. The company has been criticised not just by advocates of a switch to the open-access publication model, but also by universities whose library budgets make it difficult for them to afford current journal prices. For example, a resolution by Stanford UniversityStanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
's senate singled out Elsevier as an example of a publisher of journals which might be "disproportionately expensive compared to their educational and research value" and which librarians should consider dropping, and encouraged its faculty "not to contribute articles or editorial or review efforts to publishers and journals that engage in exploitive or exorbitant pricing". Similar guidelines and criticism of Elsevier's pricing policies have been passed by the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
. The elevated pricing of field journals in economics, most of which are published by Elsevier, was one of the motivations that moved the American Economic Association
American Economic Association
The American Economic Association, or AEA, is a learned society in the field of economics, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. It publishes one of the most prestigious academic journals in economics: the American Economic Review...
to launch the American Economic Journal
American Economic Journal
The American Economic Journal is a group of four peer-reviewed academic journals published by the American Economic Association. The names of the individual journals consist of the prefix American Economic Journal with a descriptor of the field attached...
in 2009.
Resignation of editorial boards
In November 1999 the entire editorial board (50 persons) of the Journal of Logic Programming (founded in 1984 by Alan Robinson) collectively resigned after 16 months of unsuccessful negotiations with Elsevier Press about the price of library subscriptions. The personnel created a new journal, Theory and Practice of Logic Programming, with Cambridge University PressCambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
at a much lower price, while Elsevier continued publication with a new editorial board and a slightly different name (the Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming).
In 2002, dissatisfaction at Elsevier's pricing policies caused the European Economic Association
European Economic Association
The European Economic Association is a professional academic body which links European economists. It was founded in the mid-1980s. Its first annual congress was in 1986 in Vienna, Austria...
to terminate an agreement with Elsevier, which designated Elsevier's European Economic Review
European Economic Review
The European Economic Review is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers research on the scientific approach to economics. The journal was established in 1969 and the editor-in-chief is G.A. Pfann . According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2010 impact factor of 1.162....
as the official journal of the association. The EEA launched a new journal, the Journal of the European Economic Association
Journal of the European Economic Association
Journal of the European Economic Association is a general-interest journal in economics. Established in 2003, the JEEA is an outlet for theoretical and empirical work with global relevance and is published jointly by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the European Economic Association....
.
At the end of 2003, the entire editorial board of the Journal of Algorithms resigned to start ACM Transactions on Algorithms with a different, lower priced publisher, at the suggestion of Journal of Algorithms founder Donald Knuth
Donald Knuth
Donald Ervin Knuth is a computer scientist and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University.He is the author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming. Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms...
.
The same happened in 2005 to the International Journal of Solids and Structures, whose editors resigned to start the Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures. However, a new editorial board was quickly established and the journal continues in apparently unaltered form with editors D.A. Hills (Oxford University) and Stelios Kyriakides (University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
).
On August 10, 2006, the entire editorial board of the distinguished mathematical journal
Mathematical journal
A mathematics journal is a scientific journal which publishes exclusively mathematics papers. A practical definition of the current state of mathematics, as a research field, is that it consists of theorems with proofs published in a reputable mathematics journal, and which usually have passed...
Topology
Topology (journal)
Topology is a mathematical journal publishing scholarly articles related to topology and geometry. It was founded by J. H. C. Whitehead in 1962 and is published by Elsevier....
handed in their resignation, again because of stalled negotiations with Elsevier to lower the subscription price. This board has now launched the new Journal of Topology at a far lower price, under the auspices of the London Mathematical Society
London Mathematical Society
-See also:* American Mathematical Society* Edinburgh Mathematical Society* European Mathematical Society* List of Mathematical Societies* Council for the Mathematical Sciences* BCS-FACS Specialist Group-External links:* * *...
.
The French École Normale Supérieure
École Normale Supérieure
The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
has stopped having Elsevier publish the journal Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure
Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure
Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure is a French scientific journal of mathematics published by Gauthier-Villars. It was founded in 1864 by the French chemist Louis Pasteur and published articles in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and geology. In 1900, it became a purely...
(as of 2008).
Parent organisation links to weapons industry
An editorial in the medical journalMedical journal
A public health journal is a scientific journal devoted to the field of public health, including epidemiology, biostatistics, and health care . Public health journals, like most scientific journals, are peer-reviewed...
The Lancet
The Lancet
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
in September 2005 sharply criticized the journal's owner and publisher, Reed Elsevier, for its participation in the international arms trade
Arms industry
The arms industry is a global industry and business which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology and equipment. It comprises government and commercial industry involved in research, development, production, and service of military material, equipment and facilities...
. Specifically, Reed Exhibitions organized the Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition (DSEi), a large arms fair in the U.K. The authors, appealing to the Hippocratic oath
Hippocratic Oath
The Hippocratic Oath is an oath historically taken by physicians and other healthcare professionals swearing to practice medicine ethically. It is widely believed to have been written by Hippocrates, often regarded as the father of western medicine, or by one of his students. The oath is written in...
, called for the publisher to "divest itself of all business interests that threaten human, and especially civilian, health and well-being."
In the March 2007 issue of the The Lancet, leading medical centers including the UK Royal College of Physicians
Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded in 1518 as the College of Physicians by royal charter of King Henry VIII in 1518 - the first medical institution in England to receive a royal charter...
urged Reed Elsevier to sever weapons ties. Doctors spoke out against Reed's role in the involvement of the organizing of exhibitions for the arms trade. Reed Elsevier’s chief executive responded in June 2007 with a written statement agreeing to do so, welcomed by authors of the petition, announcing that it would sell the part of the company which handled military trade shows
Trade fair
A trade fair is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products, service, study activities of rivals and examine recent market trends and opportunities...
. The sale was completed in May 2008.
Chaos, Solitons & Fractals
There was speculation that the editor-in-chief of Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, M. El Naschie, misused his power to publish his work without appropriate peer review. The journal had published 322 papers with El Naschie as author since 1993. The last issue of December 2008 featured five of his papers. The controversy was covered extensively in blogs. The publisher announced in January 2009 that El Naschie had retired as editor-in-chief. the co-Editors-in-Chief of the journal were Maurice Courbage and Paolo Grigolini. In June 2011 El Naschie sued the journal NatureNature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
for libel, claiming that his reputation had been damaged by their November 2008 article about his retirement, which included statements that Nature had been unable to verify his claimed affiliations with certain international institutions. The suit came to trial in November 2011, with El Naschie representing himself.
Fake journals
At a 2009 court case in Australia where Merck & Co.Merck & Co.
Merck & Co., Inc. , also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme or MSD outside the United States and Canada, is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The Merck headquarters is located in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, an unincorporated area in Readington Township...
was being sued by a user of Vioxx, the plaintiff alleged that Merck had paid Elsevier to publish the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which had the appearance of being a peer-reviewed academic journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...
but in fact contained only articles favourable to Merck drugs. Merck has described the journal as a "complimentary publication", denied claims that articles within it were ghost written by Merck, and stated that the articles were all reprinted from peer-reviewed medical journals. In May 2009, Elsevier Health Sciences CEO Hansen released a statement regarding Australia-based sponsored journals, conceding that these were "sponsored article compilation publications, on behalf of pharmaceutical clients, that were made to look like journals and lacked the proper disclosures." The statement acknowledged that this "was an unacceptable practice." The Scientist
The Scientist
The Scientist: Magazine of Life Sciences is a professional magazine intended for life scientists. Coverage includes reviews of widely noticed research papers, informing its audience of current research, updates to technology, updates to career information, profiles of scientists achieving...
reported that, according to an Elsevier spokesperson, six sponsored publications "were put out by their Australia office and bore the Excerpta Medica
EMBASE
Embase is an online information source of published literature designed to supportinformation managers and pharmacovigilance in complying with the regulatoryrequirements of a licensed drug. Through its unique and comprehensive content coverage,...
imprint from 2000 to 2005", namely the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, the Australasian Journal of General Practice, the Australasian Journal of Neurology, the Australasian Journal of Cardiology, the Australasian Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, and the Australasian Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine. Excerpta Medica was a "strategic medical communications agency" run by Elsevier, according to the imprint's web page. On October 7, 2010, Excerpta Medica was acquired by Adelphi Worldwide.
Shill reviews
According to the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
"The firm [Elsevier] offered a $25 Amazon voucher to academics who contributed to the textbook Clinical Psychology if they would go on Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
and Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...
(a large US books retailer) and give it five stars." Elsevier said that "encouraging interested parties to post book reviews isn't outside the norm in scholarly publishing, nor is it wrong to offer to nominally compensate people for their time. But in all instances the request should be unbiased, with no incentives for a positive review, and that's where this particular e-mail went too far", and that it was a mistake by a marketing employee.
Imprints
Imprints are brand namesBrand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
in publishing. Elsevier uses its imprints to market to different consumer segments. Many of them have previously been the company names of publishers that were purchased by Reed Elsevier.
- Academic PressAcademic PressAcademic Press is an academic book publisher. Originally independent, it was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier bought Harcourt in 2000, and Academic Press is now an imprint of Elsevier....
- Architectural Press
- Baillière Tindall
- BC Decker
- Butterworth-HeinemannButterworth-HeinemannButterworth–Heinemann is a UK-based international publishing company specialized in professional information and learning materials for higher education and professional training, in printed and electronic forms...
- Churchill LivingstoneChurchill LivingstoneChurchill Livingstone is an imprint of a medical publishing company owned by Elsevier Ltd, but previously owned by Harcourt and Pearson. It was formed in 1971 from the merger of E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh, Scotland, and J & A Churchill, London, England. It is but now integrated with the rest of...
- Focal PressFocal PressFocal Press is a publisher of media technology books and it is an imprint of Elsevier. It was founded in 1938 by Andor Kraszna-Krausz, a Hungarian photographer who immigrated to England in 1937 and eventually published over 1,200 books on photography....
- Gulf Professional Publishing
- GW Medical Publishing
- Hanley & Belfus
- Morgan Kaufmann
- MosbyMosbyMosby may refer to:Places:* Mosby, Missouri* Mosby, Montana* Mosby, Norway* Mosby Tavern, a 1740 historical building in Powhatan County, Virginia, also known as "Littleberry Mosby House" or "Old Cumberland Courthouse"People :* John S...
- Newnes
- North Holland
- Pergamon PressPergamon PressPergamon Press was an Oxford-based publishing house, founded by Paul Rosbaud and Robert Maxwell, which published scientific and medical books and journals. It is now an imprint of Elsevier....
- SaundersSaundersSaunders is a surname of English and Scottish patronymic origin derived from Sander, a mediæval form of Alexander.People with the surname Saunders include:* Al Saunders, American football coach* Allen Saunders, American cartoonist...
- Syngress
- William Andrew
External links
- Early history of Elsevier family
- BBC News: Reed criticised for 'arms link'
- CAAT's page on Reed Elsevier
- Tom Stafford's blog on Elsevier