Analysis and news


End predatory publishing and put research first


Despite the problems confronting academic publishing, it remains one of the most lucrative sectors in the world, says Manuel Martin


When examining the current academic publishing landscape, the phrase ‘Never judge a book by its cover’ is particularly apt for a number of reasons. While the $25 billion valuation placed on the scientific publishing sector paints a picture of a healthy, vibrant industry, it really only masks the internal issues plaguing this highly oligopolistic space, in which the top five publishers account for 50 to 70 per cent of all publications. Irrespective of the problems confronting the sector, it remains one of the most lucrative in the world. The industry’s business model has higher profit margins than any other industry in history. So how have we arrived at this situation?


Well, the costs of journals have been steadily increasing at a far higher rate than the Consumer Price Index. For example, in the last few years, research centre


10 Research Information December 2018/January 2019


libraries have experienced four to seven per cent increases in the cost of journals annually. Given that the cost of the information management infrastructure declines with Moore’s law and that most editorial expenses are paid by the research community, the price increases stem from the oligopolistic status quo flexing its publishing muscles. Along with the oligopolistic nature of the industry, there are a number of acute problems confronting the current academic publishing space.


The long and biased peer review process Problems are prevalent at the very core of the scientific publishing industry, starting with a long, biased peer review process. Manuscripts are evaluated by field


experts, revised and improved by the authors, and then finally accepted for


publication. This is the process through which grants are allocated, papers published, academics promoted and Nobel prizes won. The problem is, since reviewers are competing for the same recognition and resources, peer reviewing is inevitably going to suffer from bias. It’s no secret that the world of academia


also suffers from a diversity problem. While there have been several recent initiatives geared towards addressing diversity issues in the industry, unfortunately, these efforts have yet to be successful. In fact, 33 per cent of universities in the United Kingdom are actually regressing in terms of the number of women in tenure. Which means that the academic circles remain still largely populated by men – white men, nonetheless! This isn’t an isolated case. In 2015, a study led by Canadian researchers Gita Ghiasi, Vincent Lariviere and Cassidy R Sugimoto revealed that female researchers in engineering were less likely to have their work cited. Since an academic journal’s reputation, as well as the number of citations, are used to determine a researcher’s prowess, you can see why this is an unfair outcome not only for women and minorities, but for the whole scientific community.


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