While the big mergers and acquisitions have garnered much attention in 2021, David Crotty, a Senior Consultant in academic publishing, wants to bring to light a different area of rapid market consolidation, namely the demise of the independently publishing research society. 2021 has seen an acceleration of this trend which began in 2018 with the announcement of Plan S., whose net result to date has been a massive consolidation of the market. The biggest publishers are growing bigger, and the smaller, independent publishers are largely abandoning their independence and signing on with the biggest houses. The author demonstates the three forces driving all this consolidation: uncertainty, transformative agreements, and the required technology and reporting burdens.
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