Elsevier Statement on the European Accessibility Act
Last updated 29 October 2025
Elsevier's Commitment to the European Accessibility Act (EAA)
Elsevier is committed to inclusion and accessible design, the deliberate practice whereby a person with a disability can access a service as fully, equally, and independently as a person without a disability. Elsevier has worked hard to meet the requirements set forth in the EU European Accessibility Act, which came in to force in June 2025. This Act brought in a landmark EU law which requires some everyday products and services to be accessible for persons with disabilities.
The European Commission has provided background information in its European Accessibility Act: Q&A.
The Act, amongst other items, applies to ebooks and e-commerce sites and mobile apps. To meet the EAA principles of (perceivability, operability, understandability, robustness), Elsevier has endeavoured to bring over 50 websites, mobile apps, and digital formats up to WCAG 2.1 AA conformance. To attest to this, we have launched a publicly available directory of Accessibility Conformance Reports/ACRs and accessibility statements.
Enhancements
Elsevier has invested time and resources in the important work of making accessibility enhancements to our products and services.
Elsevier ensures all newly published ebooks are born accessible in line with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 level AA). Further, B2C ecommerce sites where users can make purchases are being conformed to WCAG 2.1 level AA. In addition, systems where users register, login, and otherwise authenticated are also conforming to WCAG 2.1 AA.
Elsevier provides high-quality accessibility features for our book content that are in line with the principles set out in the European Accessibility Act. From June 2025, we have been providing comprehensive image descriptions for ebooks in a manner that is consistent with the Act and our publishing roadmap. We provide accessible options for videos associated with ebook content that are captioned, and audio content associated with ebooks that have synchronized transcriptions. Increasingly, as our content is made accessible, our customers have the information they need and require about the accessibility features of our ebooks before the point of purchase. We offer ePUB, HTML, and tagged PDF for all books published from 2025, to help readers use the format most accessible to them.
Overview of Features of EAA Compliant eBooks
Elsevier has completed the remediation of approximately 8,000 of our most current, widely used and previously published ebooks on our largest content platforms. Enhancements include accessible ePUB, video captions, transcripts, and enhanced text descriptions where video content is only displayed visually, alt text for content images, and accessibility metadata. For older ebook titles, Elsevier has developed an Accessible Format Request (AFR) service. The AFR service allows customers to easily request that a title be remediated to conform with WCAG 2.2 level AA standards. These requests will be assessed individually, and where feasible, accessible versions will be provided.
Consumers may access Elsevier ebooks in a variety of formats including HTML, tagged PDF, ePUB, and VST/VitalSource. ScienceDirect users can download accessible ePUB ebooks, and by the end of year they will be able to request accessible ePUB for backlist titles that have not yet been fully remediated.
Every ebook published since 2008 is available in an accessible ePUB format. Learn more about Elsevier ePUB3 accessibility features and browse our catalog of ebooks on our Elsevier shop. Elsevier is an accredited Globally Certified Accessible (GCA) Publisher. Benetech evaluate whether an ePUB book conforms to both WCAG 2.2 level AA and EPUB Accessibility 1.1 specification. Our books and journals published from July 2025 onwards are tagged for optimised use with assistive technology.
All our ePUB books currently support:
Compatibility on a wide variety of devices and reading apps
DRM free ePUB files which work with screen readers
Reflowable text
Adjustable text and color presentation (dependent upon the reading app)
Screen reader content (structure, text, tables, math)
Books published from June 2025 are born accessible and support WCAG 2.2 AA standards.
This includes the following content and product types:
ebook Web site/mobile apps
Purchase/book redemption user experience
Interactive exercises and activities within ePUBs
Figures and images
Elsevier’s Commitment to Accessibility
Elsevier has a long history of developing easy to use products designed around end user needs, while following industry accessibility standards. Elsevier conducted our first end user accessibility research with the blind community in 2001, and we continue to include people in the disability community in our design and testing of products.
Elsevier has been an early adopter and advocate of several industry leading accessibility initiatives including MathJAX, Benetech Bookshare, Benetech Globally Certified Accessible, EPUB3, Marrakesh Treaty, and the ABC Charter for Accessible Publishing (2015, 2023).
Our current company Accessibility policy outlines our overall approach to accessibility. We collaborate and educate around accessibility, utilize industry standard tools, and embed accessibility in our business operations.
Please contact [email protected] for additional information on our approach to the European Accessibility Act.