AMSTERDAM, April 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Norwegian consortium for higher education and research and Elsevier, the global information analytics business specializing in science and health, today agreed to a pilot national license, providing Norwegian researchers with access to global academic research while making Norwegian research accessible through open access publishing. The agreement is the result of close cooperation between the Norwegian research community and Elsevier.

The pilot will run for two years, giving seven universities and 39 research institutions across Norway access to Elsevier's world-leading platform for scientific knowledge with more than 16 million publications from over 2,500 journals published by Elsevier and its society partners. It also enables Norwegian researchers to publish their research Open Access.

The Norwegian Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research (Unit) and Elsevier will jointly monitor the pilot and capture learnings and data to further refine Elsevier's open access offerings in line with the needs of the Norwegian research community.

"We are very pleased to have signed this ground-breaking pilot agreement that enables Norwegian researchers to read and publish in the vast majority of Elsevier's high-quality journals," said Roar Olsen, General Director of Unit. "The data harnessed will be invaluable in gaining a deeper understanding of what can be achieved when a publisher and consortium work so closely together."

Elsevier is one of the world's leading subscription and open access publishers, enabling researches to stay up-to-date with the latest findings in science, technology and health from around the world.

"We look forward to continuing to support Norwegian researchers and to learning from this pilot to continually improve our services," said Gino Ussi, Elsevier's Executive Vice President. "Elsevier's approach has been to engage with Unit to understand their specific objectives and work with their team to create an innovative solution that provides access to the highest-quality research and enables open access publishing while providing fair value to both sides so that the quality, integrity and sustainability of the peer review publishing system can be preserved."

About Unit – The Norwegian Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research 
Unit was established by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research in 2018. Unit provides a wide range of services for research and higher education and plays a central role in following up the government's digitization policy. Unit negotiates agreements with academic publishers on behalf of Norwegian institutions and is also national coordinator for the work with open access in Norway. Unit serves 220 organisations in the Norwegian Higher Education & Research sectors. Unit's main office is located in Trondheim, and Unit also has a branch office in Oslo. www.unit.no

About Elsevier 
Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps scientists and clinicians to find new answers, reshape human knowledge, and tackle the most urgent human crises. For 140 years, we have partnered with the research world to curate and verify scientific knowledge. Today, we're committed to bringing that rigor to a new generation of platforms. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, SciVal, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, 39,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries. www.elsevier.com

Media contact
Andrew Davis, Global Communications
Elsevier
+44-7393-242-466
andrew.davis@elsevier.com

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SOURCE Elsevier; The Norwegian Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research