OPEN FOR BUSINESS

[aum]

Authors are increasingly paying to publish their papers open access. But is it fair or sustainable?

 

When Alicia Kowaltowski was looking to publish new results about pancreatic cells earlier this year, she wanted a journal with an international audience and a strong reputation. The biochemist at the University of São Paulo was looking out for her student co-authors, who need to publish in prominent journals to help their chances of landing postdoctoral appointments abroad—a goal for many researchers working in developing countries. She picked the open-access (OA) journal Molecular Metabolism, produced by Elsevier, the world’s largest publisher of scientific papers.

 

Kowaltowski knew that, like other OA journals, it charges authors a fee, which makes the paper free to read when published. But she expected to obtain a discount, as she had in the past, because she works in a less affluent country. Instead, after the paper was accepted, the journal asked for its standard fee of $3810. She refused; her government grant that funded the work caps the amount that can be put toward such fees at the equivalent of about $2100, a reflection of Brazil’s modest research budgets. “If you end up paying, then you’re losing funds for other things, like laboratory chemicals,” says Kowaltowski, who this year received a L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Award for her research. And she wasn’t eager to tap her monthly paycheck of about $3500 after taxes.

 

Kowaltowski and a co-author emailed the journal 12 times asking for a discount. It eventually published the paper, but Elsevier threatened Kowaltowski with legal action if she didn’t pay the quoted fee. As of last week, the matter was unresolved. Getting discounts is “kind of a battle every time,” she says. (Elsevier says it determines fee reductions on a case-by-case basis.)

 

Kowaltowski is one of countless researchers who report they’re too strapped to pay these article-processing charges (APCs), which can reach more than $12,000 per paper and are becoming the dominant business model for scientific publishing. Publishers tout fee waivers or discounts for researchers in need—but obtaining them is cumbersome, authors say. That’s a worry especially in the Global South, but even some authors in wealthier countries say they end up paying APCs from their own pockets.

 

Now, authors and policymakers fear scientific publishing’s growing reliance on hefty APCs means many authors will be locked out, heightening long-standing inequities in global science. “Being kept from publishing is worse than being kept from reading [a paper because of subscription costs], because you could always ask the authors for a [copy of the] paper,” Kowaltowski says. But if APCs are unaffordable, she warns, the work of many scientists becomes “nonexistent.”

 

Publishers are testing several ideas for blunting that threat. “We are actively and creatively deploying a number of levers to ensure all are able to benefit from OA,” says Springer Nature spokesperson Susie Winter. But making journal articles both free to read and affordable to publish won’t be easy, analysts warn. “The barrier to surmount,” says Malavika Legge, program manager for the nonprofit Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA), “is how can we evolve so we think about these financial transactions in a way that has collective—not just personal or organizational—benefit?”

 

THE AUTHOR-PAYS MODEL accounts for about half of all newly published papers. That share could grow further as the United States is set to implement a policy in 2025 requiring federal grantees to deposit journal articles produced with government funding in public repositories upon publication. (Existing U.S. policy allows a publisher to keep such papers behind a paywall for up to 1 year.)

 

Advocates for open access argue that if authors worldwide adopted the practice, it would accelerate science everywhere.

 

Publishers have said charging a fee per paper is necessary to make open access economically sustainable. The fastest growing type has been “gold” journals, which publish only open-access articles, typically for a fee. (Molecular Metabolism is one.) Hybrid journals publish both open-access and paywalled papers under the same journal name; only authors who choose the open-access option pay the APC.

 

Some critics of APCs argue the model incentivizes journals to favor quantity over quality, because publishing more papers generates more revenue. An alternative is “green” open access, where authors deposit an accepted paper in a public repository and don’t pay the publisher a fee. Under the “zero-embargo” version of green OA authors can deposit a paper as soon as it’s published, but few journals permit the model. (The Science family of subscription journals is among the exceptions; Science’s News department is editorially independent of the journals.) Publishers argue zero-embargo access would cause subscribers to stop buying their content.

 

Open-access revenue triples

 

Six companies that are among the top publishers of paid open-access content saw revenues from author fees surge over 5 years. (Figures do not include discounts or waivers.) The growth is driven by two factors: The number of open-access articles published is increasing, and authors are also choosing to publish in more expensive journals (see more graphics, below).

 

(GRAPHIC) M. HERSHER/SCIENCE; (DATA) SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS LAB

 

Gold and hybrid APCs have indeed become a cash cow for publishers. And publishing’s domination by a few large, highly profitable corporations—including Elsevier and Springer Nature—reinforces a seller’s market. Since 2019, gold and hybrid revenue for six of the largest OA publishers has tripled, according to an analysis by Stefanie Haustein of the University of Ottawa and colleagues, posted last week on the arXiv preprint server. (It does not consider discounts or waivers, as these data are not publicly available.) In contrast, subscription revenue has barely crept up over the same period, other studies indicate. In 2023, the median APC for gold OA was $2000, and for hybrid, $3230, Haustein’s study found. At the high end, the Nature portfolio of hybrid journals charged $11,690 that year; the fee is now $12,290. (The gold open-access Science Advances’s APC is $4950.)

 

The prices closely correlate with a journal’s impact factor, the controversial metric based on citations to a journal’s articles. Hybrid journals tend to charge more in part because many are older than gold ones, so they have had more time to develop a reputation that may carry a higher impact factor—and the higher interest from authors that often goes with it. Other factors that tend to bump up price: selectivity (journals that reject more papers have more paid staff) and whether the journal is published in English and by a publisher based in a developed country—all hallmarks of the world’s top-ranked journals.

 

What’s more, price competition is limited by a dearth of tools allowing researchers to comparison-shop for APCs across publishers. One, the Directory of Open Access Journals, lists only gold journals.

 

In addition to the difficulty of finding and comparing prices, “There aren’t necessarily a ton of journals in your field that your research fits into,” says Kyle Siler, an economic sociologist at the University of Toronto who has studied APCs. As a result, “The amount of shopping around scholars can do in the OA world ranges from moderate to none.”

 

FOR AUTHORS WHO STRUGGLE to afford APCs, publishers have provided a variety of waivers and discounts—but anecdotal reports suggest they are not consistently available. Publishing industry guidelines allow full fee waivers for authors in countries defined as low income. There are 81, according to criteria established by Research4Life, a nonprofit supported by the publishing industry and other organizations that was established in 2002 to help such countries gain free access to paywalled journals. Publishers offer discounts of 50% in an additional 44 jurisdictions designated by Research4Life as lower middle income, including Egypt, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

Ahmed Sarki of Aga Khan University in Uganda, one of the low-income countries, says he has received full waivers for most of the OA papers he has co-authored, including in the PLOS and BMC families of journals. Sarki, who studies maternal and adolescent health, says publishing in open-access journals is critical for many African researchers “because the user we are targeting is in this part of the world, where they struggle to pay to access [paywalled] articles.”

 

The steady march of author-paid open-access papers

 

“Gold” and “hybrid” fees have driven the growth in the share of all papers published open access, even as the total number of articles has increased, according to the OpenAlex database.

 

Publishing categories

 

Green open access

Authors or publishers deposit articles in a public repository, where they are free to read. Journal embargoes can delay posting.

Gold open access

Articles are published with a license making them immediately free to read. Authors or institutions typically pay journals for this service.

 

Hybrid open access

Hybrid journals charge for open-access publication but also publish other articles behind a paywall and continue to charge for subscriptions.

 

Bronze

Articles are free to read on publishers’ websites, but the papers are not licensed as open access, allowing publishers to place the articles behind paywalls later.

 

Paywalled
Journals keep articles behind subscription paywalls.

 

(GRAPHIC) M. HERSHER/SCIENCE; (DATA) OPENALEX

 

But Sarki says he and colleagues have encountered roadblocks to obtaining waivers. Scientists in neighboring Kenya and Tanzania, for example, have been denied by publishers who use World Bank criteria that classify the two nations as lower middle income, not low income (as Research4Life does). And on his own papers, Sarki says, some journals balked because a co-author was from a developed country. He pushed back and sometimes secured at least a discount, and he counsels colleagues—almost all of whom lack funds to pay—on how to do the same. “Some need help to frame the message that: ‘Look, this is a piece of work coming from this part of the world that needs to be out there [free to read],’” he says.

 

In East Africa, however, Sarki says some researchers don’t get that far. Even being asked to pay an APC “puts off” authors, he notes, adding that the sticker shock can be substantial. After Sarki told a trainee that APCs cost $2000 on average, the stunned researcher noted he could buy a car for that sum. “When you hear [the price], you get defeated,” Sarki says.

 

Waiver and discount policies only go so far, and appear to have produced mixed results. When a team led by Fakhri Momeni of the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences analyzed more than 500,000 articles published by Springer Nature in 2017 and 2018, it found that less than 1% came from authors in low-income countries. But they were the most likely by far to publish in OA journals—81% of their papers were gold or hybrid, compared with 49% of those authored by researchers in high-income countries. The availability of waivers likely contributed to this difference, Momeni says.

 

 

Scientists Alicia Kowaltowski (first image) of the University of São Paulo in Brazil and Ahmed Sarki (second image) of Aga Khan University in Uganda report struggles to finance open-access fees. (FIRST IMAGE) CÉCILE BURBAN; (SECOND IMAGE) AHMED SARKI

 

Scholars in lower middle-income nations, who qualify for the 50% discount, had the lowest rate of papers published as gold or hybrid OA, only 19%, according to the 2023 study. (Their papers were 8% of the total.) In other words, even with the discount it appears their government and university funding cannot cover their required share.

 

Publishers also offer discounts to other hybrid authors in wealthier countries based on documented financial need. But in Kowaltowski’s experience, publishers withhold a discount to researchers if they have any grant funding, no matter how little. “There has to be protection for middle-income economies, within this shift to open access,” she says. “I don’t think anybody thinks that an author in Brazil or Argentina or Mexico should be paying the same as in the Global North.”

 

Compounding these obstacles, publishers of hybrid journals typically don’t offer waivers or discounts at all, reasoning that needy authors can follow the conventional route of publishing without a fee, although as a result the paper will likely be behind a paywall. (An exception is Nature hybrid journals, which in 2023 began to waive the APC for authors in 75 low- and lower middle-income countries.)

 

Many publishers don’t make it easy to find information about waivers or discounts, leaving qualifying authors in the dark. Even when they know discounts are available, some are reluctant to ask, fearing a manuscript might get rejected as a result, Sarki says. Gold journals could sidestep that issue by automatically providing waivers based on an author’s address, publishing analysts say.

 

Most publishers don’t disclose details about their waivers and discounts, such as how many they offer or how many authors accept. But the nonprofit PLOS, which has touted its transparency about journal costs, provided some insights. In 2023, PLOS waived $4.4 million in fees, and more than three-quarters of these reductions went to authors in Research4Life countries, says spokesperson David Knutson. That reflects an increase in publishing volume there since 2016, when their share of the aid was less than 20%; that year, PLOS gave the majority to authors in other countries who also had financial need. PLOS is exploring alternative, equitable ways to make open-access publishing more affordable for authors across different income levels, Knutson adds.

 

Paying a premium for open access

Many authors are opting to publish in journals with higher article-processing charges, driving the median paid APC higher than the median listed APC, a study of articles published in 2023 by six top open-access publishers showed. The analysis also found that hybrid journals, which are typically more established brands, tend to charge more than gold ones. The study was based on 900,000 articles in nearly 7700 journals published by Elsevier, Frontiers, MDPI, PLOS, Springer Nature, and Wiley, and did not account for discounted APCs.

 

(GRAPHIC) M. HERSHER/SCIENCE; (DATA) SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONS LAB

 

Even in high-income countries, researchers may struggle to pay APCs. Most governments and institutions in Europe and the U.S. lack dedicated funds to cover them. That leaves grant funds. The median APC represents a small fraction of the typical U.S. research grant. But scientists funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of basic and applied research, typically experience gaps in funding of 2 to 3 years each, a 2023 study found. And according to a 2022 survey by AAAS (which publishes Science) that asked 422 U.S. researchers about how the cost of open-access publishing was affecting them, about half of authors who paid an APC reported it was difficult to find the funds. Three-quarters reported forgoing purchasing lab materials or equipment, and 15% paid from their own personal funds.

 

Such findings have prompted calls to rethink open-access business models. “From what we can tell, the status quo is not working for a majority of the world’s scholars,” says Legge of OASPA. (AAAS is a member.) This year, in draft recommendations for increasing equity in open-access publishing the group suggested continued experimentation with alternatives to author-paid APCs. The model mainly benefits scholars at well-funded institutions and “is maintaining and reinforcing systemic privileges that already exist,” Legge says. “It leaves many scholars in many countries scrambling.”

 

REFORMERS HAVE FLOATED a variety of approaches to make it easier for authors to afford open-access publishing, but there’s little agreement about which is most promising. One method is the “transformative agreements” that many publishers have signed with institutions and national library consortia during the past decade, so-named because they are meant to help institutions shift their publishing output from paywalled to open-access content. These deals allow affiliated researchers to publish in the company’s journals without paying an APC (and gain access to their paywalled content).

 

Such agreements have mushroomed in recent years—one of the biggest covers hundreds of German research organizations. But in 2023 the deals still covered only about 12.5% of all scholarly papers published and about 25% of ones in gold or hybrid journals, according to estimates from the Max Planck Digital Library’s ESAC Initiative. The deals tend to involve big players, and are most common in Europe. But they are still relatively rare in the U.S. and low- and moderate-income countries.

 

If you end up paying, then you’re losing funds for other things.

ALICIA KOWALTOWSKI UNIVERSITY OF SÃO PAULO

 

Another approach would replace full waivers and 50% discounts with automatic, set price reductions for tiers of countries, based on their wealth and purchasing power. Under this rubric, authors in most countries would be entitled to reduced APCs—but those in some wealthier countries would have to pay more than they do now if publishers sought to offset the lost revenue, according to a 2023 analysis by the Delta Think consulting firm. For example, Brazil’s average price would decline by 25%, but the U.S.’s would rise by 50%.

 

Such a pricing scheme “while attractive in principle, would need to be carefully implemented in practice,” Delta Think’s Dan Pollock and Ann Michael wrote last year in a blog post. “There will be winners and losers. And … they will be unevenly distributed.”

 

The tiered approach was backed in a report released this week by the Coalition S group of funders, most of whose members are based in Europe and which mandates grantees to publish open access. This year, Elsevier and Springer Nature joined several publishers that have announced pilot projects similar to what Coalition S is encouraging. Elsevier’s covers 142 of its more than 600 gold open-access journals; price reductions are provided automatically. “We aim to test and learn from a more globally equitable model that reflects local economic circumstances,” Managing Director Stuart Whayman said in announcing the project.

 

Ideas for more radical changes are drawing attention. In a “diamond” open-access model, a government agency or philanthropy funds a publisher to make all articles free to read, at no cost to authors. This approach has boosted the rate of open-access publishing in Latin America, through the SciELO collection of journals, for example. But although as many as 29,000 journals globally charge no APC and draw their financing from other sources, as few as 10% have an impact factor. That limits the appeal of these journals to most scientists, whose professional advancement depends on publishing in recognized journals.

 

Another approach would do away with the expectation that every study must be published in a journal. This year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced it would no longer pay APCs for papers from research it funds; it will only require grantees to post results as preprints, which carry a nominal processing charge. (Gates will allow its grantees to tap other funds to pay journal APCs.)

 

Several of the reform proposals would de-emphasize the role of high-impact journals that charge pricey APCs as gatekeepers of quality in scientific scholarship. But prevailing professional practices may make it difficult for the open-access movement to achieve both of its long-held, twin goals: to make journal articles free to read and affordable to publish. Surveys of scientists in developed countries indicate that when they choose to publish in a journal, affordability of its APC takes a back seat to reputation; tenure and promotion committees have similar expectations. The University of Ottawa’s Haustein has found the median APC that researchers actually pay has risen faster than inflation since 2019, even as the median advertised APC price has barely budged. That’s a sign, she says, that scientists are seeking out more expensive, high-impact journals.

 

Paying that additional cost may not matter to a well-funded researcher. But for others like Kowaltowski, having to cough up the money for an APC can have greater consequences, she says. “I really feel doors being closed.”

 

Source

[The Boca Deb]

No peer review? Then how can Alicia Kowaltowski's research even be called 'research'?

[aum]

Where did you get the idea that there is no peer review?

[The Boca Deb]

Peer review was not mentioned in the OP.