“As editors of the leading journal in our field, we feel a strong responsibility to help build collective momentum towards a better system: a publishing model that does not squander vast public resources to benefit private companies, but ensures editorial independence against commercial pressures and makes research free for all.”
it is Arash Abizadeh (McGill University) Parents regarding A lot of editors Philosophy and Public Policy Earlier this year.
He clearly points out the problems with the current mainstream academic publishing.
Researchers do most of the substantive work of producing these papers for free: conducting the research, writing the papers, reviewing their quality, and editing the journals. Not only do publishers not pay us for our work, but they also sell access to these journals to universities and institutions that fund the research and editorial labor in the first place. Universities need access to the journals because that’s where most of the cutting-edge research is published. But subscription fees for these journals have become prohibitively expensive, and some universities struggle to afford them. As a result, many researchers (not to mention the general public) remain blocked by paywalls and unable to access the information they need.
The “obvious alternative” is
Universities, libraries and academic funding agencies can cut out the middleman and fund journals directly at a much lower cost. This removes commercial pressure from the editorial process, maintains editorial integrity and makes research accessible to all. We call this “diamond” open access, and it means that publishers charge no fees to authors, editors or readers (which is how our new journals will operate). Librarians have been advocating for this for years.
This change is important not just for academia, he says, but for society: “A revolution in publishing could also help stem the tide of disinformation and propaganda in the public sphere.”
But there are obstacles.
Academics still face major collective action problems: we want new arrangements, but each of us has strong incentives to stick to the status quo, and career advancement depends heavily on publishing in well-established journals with name recognition and reputation, which are often owned by commercial publishers.
What happened Philosophy and Public Policy and Journal of Political Philosophy (here) is perhaps a first step to change the status quo, but as Abizadeh suggests, other journals will need to make similar changes to “build collective momentum.” Which journal is next?
