From: Heather Morrison <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 01:14:46 +0000

The impact of the global financial crisis continues to be felt by
research universities and this situation may continue for some time.

For example, in the U.S. sequestration is taking a toll on research.
As reported recently in the Washington Post, of the respondents to a
survey conducted by the Association of Public and Land-grant
Universities, the Association of American Universities and the Science
Coalition... Seven out of 10 who responded said they had encountered
delays in research projects since the sequester took effect, and the
same share said their schools were obtaining fewer new research
grants".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/universities-continue-to-lobby-against-sequesters-cuts-of-research-funding/2013/11/12/64c29e68-4bba-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story.html

Canada's research granting agencies' research granting budgets were
significantly cut a couple of years back.

In Greece, major universities are closed due to budget cuts, as
reported in University World News and the Chronicle of Higher
Education:
http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/142181/

Earlier this year in the UK, higher education funding was cut by 800
million pounds - not the first round of deep cuts for this country.

If the funds for research and researchers are being deeply cut, it
might be timely to ask what the impact will be on scholarly publishing
down the road. Less research should mean less publishing (unless of
course a journal lowers its standards and publishes articles it would
have previously rejected).

Is anyone looking into this possibility? Has anyone taken action to
prepare? Examples of the latter could include ensuring that multi-year
license agreements have strong language to protect against loss of
quality and/or content, or moving from prepayment (typical with
licensing) to post-payment (payment on delivery, the norm with most
purchasing).

best,

--
Dr. Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
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