The Cost of Knowledge

[1] Internet technology, and with it the aforementioned significant decrease in overhead costs, enabled the four major scientific publishers – Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, and Informa – to cut their expenditures such that they could consistently generate gross margins on revenue of over 33%.

[citation needed] On 21 January 2012, the mathematician Timothy Gowers called for a boycott of Elsevier with a post[6] on his personal blog.

[4][8][9] The "Statement of Purpose" on the Cost of Knowledge website explains that Elsevier was chosen as an initial focus for discontent due to a "widespread feeling among mathematicians that they are the worst offender.

"[13] In February 2012, analysts of the Exane Paribas bank reported a financial impact on Elsevier with the company's stock prices falling due to the boycott.

[14] Dennis Snower criticised the monopoly of scientific publishers, but said at the same time that he did not support the boycott even though he himself is the editor-in-chief of an open-access journal on economics.

[16] In 2019, the University of California (UC) system announced that it was cancelling its Elsevier subscriptions, citing costs and lack of open access.

On 8 February 2012, 34 prominent mathematicians who had signed The Cost of Knowledge released a joint statement of purpose explaining their reasons for supporting the protest.

[29][30] In addition to Timothy Gowers, Ingrid Daubechies,[31] Juan J. Manfredi,[32] Terence Tao,[29] Wendelin Werner,[29] Scott Aaronson, László Lovász, and John Baez are among the signatories.

[37] Although the Cost of Knowledge movement was not mentioned, the statement indicated the hope that the move would "help create a less heated and more productive climate" for ongoing discussions with research funders.

[38][39] Earlier, Mike Taylor of the University of Bristol accused Issa and Maloney of being motivated by large donations that they received from Elsevier in 2011.