The costs of publishing: financial, career and personal

The current system of recognition in academia is built on a single pillar; publishing. Career advancement is dependent on how much and where you publish. Assessment of “quality” is based on extremely poor proxies, such as impact factor or journal name. There are a range of costs to this system ranging from financial to personal. 

Financial

The financial costs of publishing are very well documented. As a result of the open access (OA) movement and rise of the article processing charge (APC) business model, the financial barriers now represent a major source of inequality. APCs have created a business model that prioritises quantity over quality. This not only degrades the literature and erodes trust in science but also facilitates incentives that equally encourage volume. Over the long term this may lead to wasted grants chasing poor quality findings. In the short term however, APCs enable publishers to get paid twice as part of gold OA. Institutions or funders pay APCs for individual articles whilst also paying for subscriptions to journal bundles. As a result, the major publishers have revenues up to 40%; greater than that of the top tech companies including Apple and Google. 

An additional issue with the APC model is that for many researchers in the Global South, often the only manner in which to pay this charge is out of their own pockets. When a single APC can be multiple times the yearly salary of a researcher, this is exceptionally inequitable. For example, the APC for Nature is $12,000 whereas the average professor salary in some low-income countries can be considerably lower than this. This $12,000 is also roughly equivalent to the costs associated with running a modestly-sized preprint server for 1 year.  Many journals offer fee waivers for APCs but these are not always the most effective approach to providing equity, with authors often embarrassed to have to ask for such help and with many requests being ignored or denied. 

In addition to the direct publishing costs, the peer review process also has financial costs. It is estimated that peer review costs around $6 billion USD globally. This primarily comes in the form of “free” labour provided by academics. As the peer review system comes under ever greater strain, there have been increasing calls for journals to pay reviewers. However, this would almost certainly lead to publishers passing those costs back onto authors, which has already been suggested by the Company of Biologists.

Financial costs have perhaps become the most visible costs and the cost most under strain from the wider scientific community.

Careers

The delays caused by the current publishing system can have substantial impacts on the careers of academics, particularly early career researchers (ECRs).

In biomedical sciences, the average time from submission to publication is 4-6 months, although there are examples of papers taking over 20 years. These can be invaluable months for those applying for fellowships or their first grants. The delay can also result in shifted authorship positions, again impacting PhD students and postdocs. For those who leave a position prior to receiving reviewer comments, this can often mean someone else completing the work (and, depending on the PI, receiving the credit). Given the currency of academia is the number of 1st author papers, this can also result in a career cost. The other issue that this publishing incentive creates is an intense pressure on researchers to publish as much as possible. This can encourage poor and even questionable research practices which, if discovered, can cause significant career damage. The other problem this creates is a reduced recognition of other activities, often termed “service” work. Service work includes teaching, peer reviewing, sitting on advisory boards, supervision of students and more. These are vital activities to keep departments and academia running smoothly and yet they’re not valued sufficiently as a result of our obsession with publishing.

Personal

Of the costs associated with publishing, the personal cost is perhaps the least discussed. There is an obvious personal cost if the delays in publishing negatively impact a researcher's career. This is one of the reasons that many highly talented researchers leave academia; whether by choice or not.

Losing one's job has clear costs that can be exacerbated by the loss of a career path. Researchers often tie their identity to their career and role as an academic. This loss can lead to significant emotional and mental struggles. The career precarity, in part caused by the requirement to publish, has very well documented effects on the mental health of researchers, once again impacting ECRs most heavily. Researchers have rates of depression and anxiety six times that of the general population. 

Researchers can also feel under pressure to continue to work, for free, on previous projects. For example, to complete revisions or the writing of their last project. They often have to do this in their own time, which can lead to burnout. For some, if they did not do this free work, then the previous project may never be published or they could be moved to a less prestigious authorship position. When careers are assessed by the number of publications, this can leave many in a highly exploitative position. 

The solution?

The scientific publishing system needs a radical overhaul. However, combatting these problems cannot be achieved by changing the publishing system alone. Changes must occur alongside changes to academic culture, specifically with the recognition and rewards for researchers. 

For ECRs, preprints may represent a method of providing appropriate credit for unfinished projects whilst new staff complete the work for publication. In a culture that recognises preprints (as stand alone research outputs as opposed to requiring them to be peer reviewed), this would reduce the need for researchers to continue projects after leaving short positions. Additionally, better training in project and personnel management for principle investigators would help ensure projects are completed in appropriate time, reducing the amount of ECRs who leave positions before completing the project.