York, Sheffield and Lancaster all reject publisher agreements, as Kingston cancels subscription to Nature titlesThe universities of York, Sheffield and Lancaster are the latest institutions to confirm they will not renew their agreement with academic publishing giant Elsevier this year, while Kingston University has cancelled its subscription to Nature journals. New agreements with Elsevier and the other ‘big five’ academic publishers—Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, Wiley and Sage—were struck in December via Jisc, the UK higher education sector’s technology and digital organisation. However, it was expected that some institutions would be unable to afford to renew their deals.