The Future of Academic Publishers

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Academic publishers have a place, but I think they won't potentially for very long. Elsevier told us that it is disappointed with the decision of the neuro image editorial board to step down from their roles. Hannah Devlin: Is this a business model on its last legs or is this just a group of academics feeling they've had enough? Ellie Burie: Something probably does need to change because there's this ongoing sense of frustration in scientific publishing.

More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the ‘greed’ of the publisher. Ian Sample speaks to correspondent Hannah Devlin about the remarkably lucrative business of scientific publishing, hears from Prof Chris Chambers about what was behind the recent mass resignation, and finds out why researchers are demanding change. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod