revised on 28/06 01.00 am

I participated in a workshop on academic publishing in peer-reviewed journals, given by the editors of a journal based in Central Europe. This journal has become part of the Palgrave-Springer conglomerate.

While nearly all journal editors, all reviewers and authors work for free, and authors that want to publish ‘open access’ with one of those journals need to pay a fee of typically 1500-3000 USD (so their article does not appear behind a paywall), the journals themselves make whopping profit margins of 40% on average by selling subscriptions and individual articles for very high prices.

This has allowed the emergence of several academic publishing conglomerates (Taylor & Francis, Sage, Wiley-Blackwell, Reed-Elsevier, and Palgrave-Springer) that go on aggressive buying sprees, trying to swallow the last independent academic publishers or each other.

It should be observed that most universities are publicly funded; thus the authors, editors and reviewers are either paid from public resources or they are contributing their own time and money. This political-economic publishing model benefits a few powerful groups at the expense of public funding.

Academic publishing was an industry worth 19 billion dollars in 2017 with solid growth rates. It represents a sizable part of the global book publishing industry. A 2005 Deutsche Bank report referred to it as a “bizarre” “triple-pay” system, in which “the state funds most research, pays the salaries of most of those checking the quality of research, and then buys most of the published product”. (The Guardian, 27 June 2017)

Meanwhile, with budget cuts, universities are spending an increasing share of their library budgets on these journals. Budgets for academic books go largely to the same conglomerates. Independent academic publishers have a small and decreasing market share.

A valuation system of academic writing has gradually become mainstream, first in North America, and then in Europe and the rest of the world, where publishing an academic article in a peer-reviewed journal is actually considered more worthy than publishing a book.

Publications in news outlets, online media and other sources potentially read by millions are disregarded. Only academic publishing in peer-reviewed journals is counted, with coefficients provided by ranking systems of the most successful journals and numbers of citations, allowing the quantification of publishing activities of individual academics.

Some universities now require their academic staff to publish in high-ranking journals or face dismissal/lack of promotion. This has led to what academics experience as a ‘publish or perish’ culture. Some are now willing to pay thousands to get their articles published.

A parallel industry of so-called ‘predatory publishers’ has emerged in the shadow of this business model. Mostly based in India, these so-called ‘academic journals’ approach junior academics eager to publish, offering a likely successful ‘peer-reviewing process’ in exchange for a fee. These fake journals are closely monitored and denounced by the industry and independent academic watchdogs, so publishing in them is actually counterproductive.

It appears that almost no-one reads most of the legitimate academic articles, of which 2.9 million were published in 2020 (90% from high-income countries, skewing the odds against scholars from non-Western areas). One study found that over half of the published articles had only been read by the author, the journal editor and the reviewers; another found that only 10% of academically published papers had ever been cited.

Academic publishing, surprisingly, has become an extreme manifestation of the neoliberal economic model, transferring public wealth to private hands, and facilitating the dizzying accumulation of capital, and thence monopolistic practices. I have a serious problem with contributing to that system, but it has become clear to me that I will not obtain an academic position if I do not participate. I wonder how many other independent-minded scholars are in a similar quandary.

I asked the journal editors who had organized the workshop what benefit the takeover of their journal by Springer-Palgrave had. They were reluctant to reply, mentioning it had happened before they became editors, but conceded that the conglomerate had introduced ‘journal management systems’ that had become so essential that the editors could not even imagine how previous editors had done without. Other services they provide include technical and marketing support.

They assured me the publishers do not interfere with content but ‘ask questions’ to ensure a ‘smoother process’ within the editing systems and obtain industrial economies of scale. I do wonder, though, what would happen if one of the journals they own puts the publisher in a bad light, for example through research into the academic publishing world. Will the journals not decline such submissions?

The editors admitted that ‘they made us dependent on them’. They added that none of the editors they know is satisfied with the role publishers play, and that if universities had the resources, they could do without the publishing giants. But these giants increasingly call the shots.

I think it is only a matter of time before these conglomerates start buying up universities, thus completely controlling academic output. My advice to academics is to boycott these publishing conglomerates and only publish in the few remaining independent media. We independent scholars should network together and establish our own system of peer-reviewed online – real open access – publishing.