What is ELSSS

ELSSS, the ELectronic Society for Social Scientists is a not-for-profit organisation aimed at solving the ever deepening crisis in scholarly and scientific communication created by the pricing policies of some commercial publishers that have forced libraries in the developed world to cut their journal portfolios and to slash their book collection and that have priced developing and transition economies out of the knowledge loop altogether. With institutional support from the Royal Economic Society, the University of St Andrews, the Consortium of University and Research Libraries, and Scottish Enterprise Fife, ELSSS is committed to:

1. Increase competition in the academic journal publishing marketplace by providing direct and credible alternatives to specific high-priced journals;
2. Introduce a fairer and more efficient way of producing, distributing, and using academic journals whereby the system that currently produces large rents being earned by some commercial publishers is replaced by a mechanism that yields lowest-cost access and widest dissemination by rewarding only those individuals who contribute to making high-quality journals, namely, authors, referees, and editors - with substantial savings for libraries and the academic and student community.

ELSSS is proud to announce that its first journal, The Review of Economic Theory, is endorsed by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).

ELSSS's mission

1. to return control of journal publishing in the social sciences to social scientists themselves;
2. to attempt to remove the inefficiencies in the current system of scientific journal publicing;
3. to adopt and devise innovations that can improve the quality of research as well as the speed and reach of its dissemination.

1. aims, scope, and general policies of the journal are determined by an Advisory Board of outstanding scientific stature and international reputation;
2. the journal is edited by a Board of Editors of outstanding scientific competence, vast experience in the field, and dedication to the scientific community;
3. both the Advisory Board and the Board of Editors are committed to devising and implementing policies that lead to the strictest and fairest criteria of peer review and to the fastest turnaround of submissions compatible with scrupolous review;
4. the journal is run on a strictly non-for-profit basis, with the cost of peer review, editing, publishing, and dissemination being recovered through subscriptions;
5. break-even subscriptions for the journal can only be levied from high-income countries, with Universities and non-commercial research centres located in the rest of the world being given full-text access to current and past volumes at no cost;
6. the journal is committed to responding effectively to the needs of both researchers and libraries, providing state-of-the-art online access and low-cost hard-copy options;
7. the journal subscribes to ELSSS's "fairness to authors" policy, whereby authors retain full copyright to their material;
8. the journal is committed to archiving all its contents in robust and widely supported formats and to make both current and past issues available to subscribing institutions in perpetuity.

ELSSS is currently exploring the possibility of launching journals in the following fields:

1. monetary economics
2. public economics
3. development economics

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