the dutch language magazine see elsevier magazine . for the dutch painter see arnout elsevier . elsevier industry information and analytics founded 1880 ; 136 years ago 1880 headquarters amsterdam netherlands revenue 2.070 billion 2015 1 parent relx group website official website elsevier dutch pronunciation lz vi r is one of the world s major providers of scientific technical and medical information and a technology company originally established in 1880 . 1 2 it is now a part of the relx group 3 known until 2015 as reed elsevier . its products include journals such as the lancet and cell the sciencedirect collection of electronic journals the trends and current opinion series of journals and the online citation database scopus . elsevier publishes approximately 400 000 articles annually in 2 500 journals . 1 its archives contain over 13 million documents and 30 000 e books . 4 total yearly downloads amount to 900 million . 1 elsevier s high profit margins 37 % in 2015 1 and its copyright practices have subjected it to criticism by researchers . 5 contents 1 history 2 company statistics 3 operating divisions 3.1 science and technology 3.2 health sciences 3.3 global conferences 4 corporate affairs 4.1 corporate social responsibility 5 criticism and controversies 5.1 pricing 5.2 resignation of editorial boards 5.3 action against academics posting their own articles online 5.4 chaos solitons & fractals 5.5 sponsored journals 5.6 shill review offer 5.7 who s afraid of peer review 5.8 the cost of knowledge boycott 5.9 selling open access articles 5.10 blocking text mining research 5.11 sci hub and libgen lawsuit controversy 6 imprints 7 see also 8 references 9 sources 10 external links history edit elsevier was founded in 1880 6 and took the name from the dutch publishing house elzevir which has no connection with the present company . 6 the elzevir family operated as booksellers and publishers in the netherlands ; the founder lodewijk elzevir 1542 1617 lived in leiden and established the business in 1580 . the expansion of elsevier in the scientific field after 1945 was funded with the profits of the newsweekly elsevier which first issue appeared on 27 october 1945 . the weekly was an instant success and earned lots of money . 7 the weekly was a continuation as is stated in its first issue of the monthly elsevier which was founded in 1891 to promote the name of the publishing house and had to stop publication in december 1940 because of the nazi occupation . in 1947 elsevier began publishing its first english language journal biochimica et biophysica acta . 8 in 2013 elsevier acquired mendeley a uk company making software for managing and sharing research papers . mendeley previously an open platform for sharing of research was greatly criticized for the acquisition which users saw as acceding to the paywall approach to research literature . mendeley s previously open sharing system now allows exchange of paywalled resources only within private groups . 9 the new yorker described elsevier s reasons for buying mendeley as two fold to acquire its user data and to destroy or co pt an open science icon that threatens its business model . 10 in december 2013 elsevier announced a collaboration with university college london the ucl big data institute . 11 elsevier s investment is substantial and thought to be more than 10 million . 12 company statistics edit in the primary research market during 2015 update researchers submitted over 1.3 m research papers to elsevier based publications . over 17 000 editors almost all of them unpaid managed the peer review and selection of these papers resulting in the publication of more than 400 000 articles in over 2 500 journals . 1 elsevier breaks down its revenue sources by format and by geographic region . approximately 41 % of revenue by geography in 2014 derived from north america 27 % from europe and the remaining 32 % from the rest of the world . approximately 76 % of revenue by format came from electronic 23 % came from print and 1 % came from face to face . 1 elsevier employs more than 7 200 people in over 70 offices across 24 countries . the company publishes 2 500 journals and 30 000 e books . it is headed by chief executive officer ceo ron mobed . 13 in 2003 elsevier publishing accounted for 25 % of the world market in science technology and medical publishing . 6 in 2015 elsevier accounted for 35 % of the revenues of relx group 2.070 billion of 5.971 billion . in operating profits it represented 42 % 760 million of 1 822 million . adjusted operating profits with constant currency rose by 2 % from 2014 to 2015 . 1 operating divisions edit 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 works and cover the health life physical and social sciences . science and technology edit 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 pure and analytical services . there are the following subsidiary imprints many of them previously independent publishing companies academic press butterworth heinemann cmp digital press elsevier gulf professional publishing morgan kaufmann newnes pergamon press pergamon flexible learning syngress publishing william andrew . sciencedirect is elsevier s platform for online electronic access to its journals and over 6 000 e books reference works book series and handbooks . the articles are grouped in four main sections physical sciences and engineering life sciences health sciences and social sciences and humanities . for most articles on the website abstracts are freely available ; access to the full text of the article in pdf and also html for newer publications often requires a subscription or pay per view purchase . health sciences edit 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 13 languages including english german french spanish italian portuguese polish japanese hindi 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 14 including the lancet . the subsidiary imprints previously independent publishing companies are saunders mosby churchill livingstone butterworth heinemann hanley & belfus bailliere tindall urban & fischer and masson . global conferences edit elsevier is conducting conferences exhibitions and workshop worldwide with over 50 conferences a year covering life sciences physical sciences & engineering social sciences and health sciences . in 2014 elsevier conducted 48 conferences attended by 11328 delegates from 128 countries . 15 corporate affairs edit corporate social responsibility edit the elsevier foundation supports libraries in developing countries women scientists and nursing facilities . 16 in 2016 elsevier s not for profit elsevier foundation committed 1m a year for 3 years to programmes encouraging diversity in science technology and medicine and promoting science research in developing countries . 17 criticism and controversies edit see also reed elsevier controversy in addition to issues indicated in this section elsevier s parent company reed elsevier has been criticised for its links to the weapons industry . pricing edit in recent years the subscription rates charged by the company for its journals have been criticized ; some very large journals with more than 5 000 articles charge subscription prices as high as 9 634 far above average 18 and many british universities pay more than a million pounds to elsevier annually . 19 the company has been criticized not only 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 university s senate singled out elsevier s journals as being disproportionately expensive compared to their educational and research value 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 . 20 similar guidelines and criticism of elsevier s pricing policies have been passed by the university of california harvard university and duke university . 21 in july 2015 the association of universities in the netherlands vsnu announced a plan to start boycotting elsevier which refused to negotiate on any open access policy for dutch universities . 22 resignation of editorial boards edit 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 . 23 the personnel created a new journal theory and practice of logic programming with cambridge university press at a much lower price 23 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 designating 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 . 24 in 2003 the entire editorial board of the journal of algorithms resigned to start acm transactions on algorithms with a different lower priced not for profit publisher 25 at the suggestion of journal of algorithms founder donald knuth . 26 the journal of algorithms continued under elsevier with a new editorial board until october 2009 when it was discontinued . 27 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 . 28 29 in august 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 . 30 this board then launched the new journal of topology at a far lower price under the auspices of the london mathematical society . 31 after this mass resignation topology remained in circulation under a new editorial board until 2009 when the last issue was published . 32 33 the french cole normale sup rieure has stopped having elsevier publish the journal annales scientifiques de l cole normale sup rieure 34 as of 2008 . 35 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 . 36 in may 2015 stephen leeder was removed from his role as editor of the medical journal of australia after its publisher decided to outsource the journal s production to elsevier . as a consequence all but one of the journal s editorial advisory committee members co signed a letter of resignation . 37 in october 2015 the entire editorial staff of the general linguistics journal lingua resigned in protest of elsevier s unwillingness to agree to their terms of fair open access . editor in chief johan rooryck also announced that the lingua staff would establish a new journal glossa . citation needed action against academics posting their own articles online edit digimarc a company representing elsevier recently when told the university of calgary to remove articles published by faculty authors on university web pages ; although