Exhibit 1021 · Peer-reviewed study
The Oligopoly of Academic Publishers in the Digital Era
Combined, the top five most prolific publishers account for more than 50% of all papers published in 2013.
Analysis of 45 million documents indexed in the Web of Science, 1973-2013, assigning journals to publishers by the publisher, city and country recorded for each issue and tracking mergers and acquisitions. Natural and medical sciences: the five largest publishers held little more than 20% of papers in 1973 and 53% in 2013. Social sciences and humanities: under 10% through 1990 and over 51% in 2013. Social sciences alone reach 70% from the top five; humanities stay near 20%. Reed-Elsevier 24.1%, Springer 11.9% and Wiley-Blackwell 11.3% of natural and medical science papers in 2013. Coverage is limited to journals indexed in the Web of Science.
- Source
- Larivière, Haustein and Mongeon, PLOS ONE 10(6): e0127502
- Date
- 10 June 2015
- Quoted from
- Abstract
- Grade
- Peer-reviewed
- Document
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502
- Accessed
- 2026-11-10
- Cited by
- Findings citing this exhibit