Job Losses at Universities, Huge Profits at Elsevier
The wave of job losses at UK universities is spreading. I recently mentioned Nottingham University and just this week saw an announcement from Sussex University that 200 jobs are on the line (this in addition to 528 already lost in the past year). Higher education in the UK is shrinking.
Meanwhile, one of the leading exponents of the Academic Publishing Racket, Elsevier, announced its profits for 2025:
(Taken from here.) That profit margin is higher than all the Big Tech companies. Higher education may be shrinking but Elsevier’s profits are not.
Despite the dire financial straits of universities in the UK and elsewhere, they continue to surrender money to this parasitic industry which is draining institutions of precious resources. I’m not saying that academic journal costs are the sole reason for the current meltdown but it does say something about the lack of imagination of University leaders that they continue wasting money on the “service” provided by commercial publishers like Elsevier.
Many of us have been boycotting Elsevier as individuals for many years, but it clearly isn’t working. Perhaps now University leaders will finally realise that the status quo is unsustainable and cut their institutional ties with the publishing industry for good. It won’t solve all their financial problems, but it’s the right thing to do.
In the Dark 
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