Ethical publishing: how do we get there?

Fernando Racimo (), Nicolas Galtier, Véronique de Herde, Noémie Bonn, Ben Phillips, Thomas Guillemaud () and Denis Bourguet ()
Additional contact information
Fernando Racimo: UCPH - University of Copenhagen = Københavns Universitet
Nicolas Galtier: UMR ISEM - Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EPHE - École Pratique des Hautes Études - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - Institut de recherche pour le développement [IRD] : UR226 - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UM - Université de Montpellier
Véronique de Herde: UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain = Catholic University of Louvain
Noémie Bonn: UHasselt - Hasselt University
Ben Phillips: University of Melbourne
Thomas Guillemaud: ISA - Institut Sophia Agrobiotech - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur
Denis Bourguet: UMR CBGP - Centre de Biologie pour la Gestion des Populations - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - IRD [Occitanie] - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - Institut Agro Montpellier - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - UM - Université de Montpellier

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Abstract: The academic journal publishing model is deeply unethical: today, a few major, for-profit conglomerates control more than 50% of all articles in the natural sciences and social sciences, driving subscription and open-access publishing fees above levels that can be sustainably maintained by publicly funded universities, libraries, and research institutions worldwide. About a third of the costs paid for publishing papers is profit for these dominant publishers' shareholders, and about half of them covers costs to keep the system running, including lobbying, marketing fees, and paywalls. The paywalls in turn restrict access of scientific outputs, preventing them from being freely shared with the public and other researchers. Thus, money that the public is told goes into science is actually being funneled away from it, or used to limit access to it. Alternatives to this model exist and have increased in popularity in recent years, including diamond open-access journals and community-driven recommendation models. These are free of charge for authors and minimize costs for institutions and agencies, while making peer-reviewed scientific results publicly accessible. However, for-profit publishing agents have made change difficult, by co-opting open-access schemes and creating journal-driven incentives that prevent an effective collective transition away from profiteering. Here, we give a brief overview of the current state of the academic publishing system, including its most important systemic problems. We then describe alternative systems. We explain the reasons why the move toward them can be perceived as costly to individual researchers, and we demystify common roadblocks to change. Finally, in view of the above, we provide a set of guidelines and recommendations that academics at all levels can implement, in order to enable a more rapid and effective transition toward ethical publishing.

Keywords: academic publishing; journal; open-access; peer-review; ethics; collective action; recommendation model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme and nep-sog
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03621386v2
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Published in Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology, 2022, 14, pp.15. ⟨10.3998/ptpbio.3363⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03621386

DOI: 10.3998/ptpbio.3363

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