Is this the beginning of the end for the era of excessive profiteering by publishers?
2023 has been a year of unrest at many commercial journals run by major publishers. Does this signal the start of a pushback against high publishing charges and are some of the alternative (non-profit) publishing models beginning to show traction?
This summer two-thirds of the associate editors at the Wiley publication, Journal of Biogeography resigned in protest at excessive Article Processing Charges leading. Fees at this journal had recently risen as high as $4800 to make an article openly accessible, with some Wiley journals charging as much as $11,000 in APC fees. As one of the associate editors said, ‘this system promotes the visibility of those researchers with ample funds… but severely hampers the research visibility of early career researchers and those in countries with low to middle economies’[i]
In a similar case, in May this year, the entire board of the Elsevier journal, NeuroImage resigned. Again, the dispute was around rising article processing charges, as high as $3450 at this journal. Similarly, another Wiley publication, Aging Cell was left without any editors in August this year when all four editors resigned. These editors complained of being ‘flooded’ with submissions and accused the Journal of being ‘happy to publish more papers (and make even more profit) at the cost of bringing down the Impact Factor’[ii] A clear example of putting profit before rigour.
Wiley and Elsevier are not alone in issuing ever higher requests for APC fees. Most editorial board members of Critical Public Health, a Taylor and Francis journal, have also resigned recently, arguing that a scholarly journal that is also treated as a ‘commodity’ is an increasingly difficult thing to be a part of. Constant APC increases and a drive to accept more publications while compromising quality seem to be the tipping point. These commercial influences often run counter to the principles of academic research, which doubtless rely on funding, but are curiosity driven rather than profit led.
The oft quoted Guardian article of a few years ago claimed that Elsevier and Wiley’s scientific publishing profit margins currently exceed those of Google and Amazon, estimated at a whopping 36%. If these figures are anywhere near accurate then these are hugely successful commercial enterprises. Although profit may be reinvested, academics producing much of this output still clamour for funding as their institutions tighten their belts to meet increasing running costs.
The editors at NeuroImage now plan to start a new journal, ‘Imaging Neuroscience’ which will be run on a not-for-profit basis. These efforts, and the ‘Open Access’ model are an attempt to push back against an exploitative system. Pre-print servers are also popular, where researchers can make their work immediately available. Chris Chambers, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Cardiff University presses this further saying, “More radically, all governments should require that publicly funded researchers archive their research articles as preprints in free repositories prior to journal submission, and then update the preprints as their manuscripts go through peer review. This would ensure that the final preprint is identical to anything that appears in a peer-reviewed journal,”[iii].
Here at Aberdeen our academic staff are embracing alternatives to the traditional publishing model. Our Education department publishes Education in the North, a peer-reviewed and open access journal, and an Aberdeen Geoscience academic was instrumental in setting up, a community led Diamond Open Access Journal, Tektonika.
More recently, we re-launched Aberdeen University Press with an aspiration of becoming a sustainable diamond open access press, publishing high quality peer-reviewed research in all disciplines and fields of enquiry from scholars worldwide. This will form part of a growing community-led, non-profit publishing environment with the aim to become a long term, sustainable alternative to the big academic publishers.
Article Processing Charges and sometimes other hidden charges work against the fair and equal ethos that many journals seek to maintain and that many academics strongly believe in. Are these resignations isolated or the start of a bigger pushback? Here’s hoping that we see more authors, editors and reviewers take a stand against unreasonable charges to create a fairer and more level playing field for academics at all levels and from all areas of the globe.
[i] https://retractionwatch.com/2023/08/07/wiley-journal-editors-resign-en-masse-fired-chief-editor-speaks/#:~:text=Two%2Dthirds%20of%20the%20associate,likely%2C%20according%20to%20those%20involved.
[ii] https://retractionwatch.com/2022/08/26/editors-in-chief-of-aging-journal-resign-en-masse-after-impasse-with-the-anatomical-society-and-wiley/
[iii] https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/journal-resignations-can-drive-scholar-led-publishing-revolution
