Publication of scientific journals under scrutiny:
Public research, private profit
International scientific journals are an ingenious business concept: Research projects are often publicly funded, authors stand in line to write for free, experts review the articles without pay, journals are sold at exorbitant prices, and customers have no choice but to buy.
(Photo: Shutterstock)
Researchers usually choose their words with discretion, but when the topic is the major, international scientific journals, many of them use words such as "greed" and "monopolistic capitalism". The largest of these publishing houses, Elsevier, showed a profit in 2007 of £ 477 million (about NOK 5 billion) from a turnover of £ 1,507 million. In other words, it is good business to publish some 250,000 scientific articles per year in about 2,000 journals and a couple of thousand books using lots of free help from 300,000 researchers.
Several other publishing houses, such as Blackwell and Springer, also enjoy extraordinarily large profits. The US foundation Wellcome Trust has performed several analyses of the international scientific journals and shown that profits of up to 30 per cent of sales are usual. Other segments of the publishing industry must be content with profits in the range of three per cent.
(Photo: Andreas B. Johansen)
The dinosaurs must die out
Current publication practice is a hot topic among researchers these days. When the Norwegian Association of Researchers (NAR) held a well-attended breakfast seminar in autumn 2007, palaeontologist Jørn Hurum was one of those who did not mince words.
"Researchers must take back the publication process and publish through open access. Then we can reach our readers directly. I like to compare this with the extinction of the dinosaurs. Just as the dinosaurs had to die out, so too will the publishing houses be forced to their knees and open access will become the main channel for scientific publication," he said.
"It is a nice thought that all research will be publicly accessible, but problems will arise if the guidelines steering publication in that direction are too stringent," said Professor Olav Torvund at the same seminar. "We researchers must be able to decide ourselves when and where our research will be published. We know best what the most suitable channels are. The requirement to publish in open channels must not lead to a re-examination of researchers' rights," said Professor Torvund, who is also a member of the NAR's copyright committee.
Pricey subscriptions
One problem with traditional journal publication is that researchers and research institutions throughout the world pay sky-high prices for subscriptions. University library accounts show that for many years the price of scientific journals has risen faster than the general inflation rate in society as a whole, but increased allocations have covered only part of this cost differential. Moreover, articles accepted for publication in the most well-recognised journals languish for up to a year and a half before they are published, delaying overall knowledge development within the scientific fields.
The Internet has created new opportunities. One alternative is to publish scientific results electronically in what is known as "open access journals". Another possibility is for research institutions to store articles in their own open archives. A growing number of publishers of scientific journals allow researchers to parallel publish their articles in the mother institution's publication archive.
In Norway, the Ministry of Research and Education wants to study the possibility of making more results from publicly funded research available through open channels, as it stated in a letter dated June 2008 to the Research Council and the Norwegian Association of Higher Education Institutions (UHR).
Simpler and cheaper
"At the request of the Ministry of Education and Research and in conjunction with UHR, the Research Council will assess measures to promote open access in all sectors that carry out research. Parallel with this, we will formulate a policy on this matter for the Research Council," explains Nina Nordvik, Senior Adviser in the Division for Science.
"The principle is that the results from publicly funded research must be freely accessible to the general public. We will look closely at how the Research Council can use the means at its disposal to achieve this. At the same time, we must ensure that new solutions do not have a negative impact on scientific quality. We are concerned with maintaining the procedures for quality assurance and peer review," she continues.
Despite these criticisms, publishing houses perform an important function. Their task is to coordinate the entire process from the selection of high-calibre articles, quality assurance, peer review, graphic production and printing to marketing and distribution. This can never be done free of charge. "The current model works well in some ways, but it also has some serious flaws. For example, the mega-players in the market are so strong that the lack of competition poses a threat," asserts Ms Nordvik.
No shortcuts
It is no simple matter for researchers to turn their backs on the prestige and credit that comes from publishing in major journals. It would take at least four to five years for a newly-established, web-based open journal to reach the level of recognition to compete with the established publishers.
"It is certainly not easy to change a publication practice that is so well-established," Ms Nordvik acknowledges. "Naturally, the universities are very concerned with research freedom, including the freedom to choose where to publish. But they have not yet devised effective strategies for their activities in this area."
- Published:
- 27.11.2008
- Last updated:
- 05.12.2008
