Elsevier is a Netherlands-based publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. It is a part of the RELX Group, known until 2015 as Reed Elsevier. Its products include journals such as The Lancet and Cell, the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, the Trends and Current Opinion series of journals, the online citation database Scopus, the SciVal tool for measuring research performance, the ClinicalKey search engine for clinicians, and the ClinicalPath evidence-based cancer care service. Elsevier's products and services also include digital tools for data management, instruction, research analytics and assessment.[3][4]
Elsevier publishes more than 500,000 articles annually in 2,500 journals.[5] Its archives contain over 17 million documents and 40,000 e-books. Total yearly downloads amount to more than 1 billion.[5]
Elsevier's high operating profit margins (37% in 2018) and £950 million in profits, often on publicly funded research works[5][6] and its copyright practices have subjected it to criticism by researchers.[7] Seen as generating massive profits off of copyrights while adding little to no value to their products, Elsevier is commonly accused of rent-seeking.[8]