UC Secures Landmark Open Access Deal with Elsevier

Dear all, 
 
Yesterday, I was elated to learn that the University of California had successfully negotiated a ground-breaking agreement with Elsevier, the world’s largest scientific publisher, to support open-access publishing.   As President Biden would opine, “this is a really big deal!”  Indeed, the COVID pandemic and events of the past year have poignantly reinforced the importance of open scientific communication globally and made us realize how restricted access to scientific and clinical scholarly work, much of it achieved through taxpayer funding, represents an amoral barrier to progress and a root contributor to health disparity.
 
I wanted to tell you about a behind-the-scenes hero who made this all possible, our very own Dr. Marta Margeta, Associate Professor of Pathology!  
 
Marta serves as the chair of the system-wide Academic Senate Committee on the Library and Scholarly Communications and a member of the 5-person team that negotiates UC transformative agreements with scholarly publishers. For the last several years, and especially the last one, Marta has spent countless hours to secure this positive outcome.
 
You can read about this landmark agreement at these links, both of which quote Marta: 
 
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/uc-news-uc-secures-landmark-open-access-deal-world-s-largest-scientific-publisher
 
https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/UC-opens-trove-of-research-to-the-public-after-16030290.php
 
On behalf of the Department, I wanted to convey my immense gratitude to Marta for her dedicated service to the University of California and for her incredible efforts to make the world of science and medicine more accessible to all. 
 
Thank you, Marta!
 
Best wishes, 
Jay
 
Jayanta (Jay) Debnath
Distinguished Professor and Chair
UCSF Department of Pathology