A recent lawsuit charges six of the largest academic publishers with antitrust violations and exploitative practices, such as unpaid peer review and strict control over research sharing. This case could reshape academic publishing, prioritizing scientists and the public over shareholder profits. Why do we even need shareholders in publishing?
Anyone familiar with academic research knows its dark little secret: the system defining academic success also undermines the very researchers it relies on. Tax-funded researchers devote time and money to share knowledge with peers and the public. Meanwhile, for-profit academic publishers—who don’t engage in research—reap large profit margins thanks to the voluntary contributions of the scientific community.
This relationship between researchers and publishers has always struck me as a case of Stockholm syndrome. Researchers are hostages in a system controlled by publishers, having developed an acceptance of its ingrained ‘Publish or Perish’ mentality, which rewards constant publication in specific journals.
Ingrained attitudes
During my first year as a PhD student, I sat with a group of researchers over beers when a newer PhD student enthusiastically shared her strategy for success: “If we work hard on three projects for three years, we can publish at least one of them in Nature! It can’t be that hard.” We all laughed—none louder than the senior students who had endured the grind too long already. I shared a smile so as not to seem too silly. Her priorities were unsurprising; they reflected academia’s culture, where publishing in prestigious journals remains the ultimate dream.
Her ambition was a product of a system that prioritizes prestige, one that has shaped the way researchers have approached their work for decades, an unconditional article-chasing for academic success. People outside academia often react with disbelief when they learn about the process that drives research.
- Taxpayers fund academic research through grants and governmental support, especially in fundamental research.
- Researchers do what they do best: research. They conduct their studies to achieve significant results.
- The “Publish or Perish” mentality ingrained in academia pressures researchers to publish their findings and advance their careers.
- Authors must submit their results and methods to one publisher at a time. Since the publishing system restricts academics from submitting the same research to multiple journals, it delays publication as publishers don’t feel incentivized or pressured to expedite the publication process.
- A sense of duty pressures academics to work for free as peer reviewers or editors, providing publishers with free labor.
- Traditional publishers often require the research institute or lab to sign away all intellectual property rights without compensation if the work is accepted.
- Despite being the research creators, researchers and their institutes have to pay to access articles placed behind paywalls.
Apart from affecting research, this system restricts the public’s access to and dissemination of scientific knowledge despite being funded by the public. Why do we persist in pulsing through a thick layer of contradictions that slows science and limits knowledge-sharing to benefit a few?
Doing something about academic exploitation
A recent class-action lawsuit claims six major academic publishers violated antitrust laws by conspiring not to pay scholars for their peer-review work and restricting information-sharing and simultaneous submissions to multiple journals.
In a class-action lawsuit, the plaintiff constitutes a group of people represented by a member or members of that group (the class).
Dr. Lucina Uddin, a neuroscience professor at UCLA, spearheaded this case, accusing Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer, John Wiley & Sons, Sage Publications, Taylor and Francis, and Springer Nature of conspiring against academic authors. According to the lawsuit:
“First, the Publisher Defendants agreed to not compensate scholars for their labor, in particular not to pay for their peer review services (the “Unpaid Peer Review Rule”).”
“Second, the Publisher Defendants agreed not to compete with each other for manuscripts by requiring scholars to submit their manuscripts to only one journal at a time (the “Single Submission Rule”).”
“Third, the Publisher Defendants agreed to prohibit scholars from freely sharing the scientific advancements described in submitted manuscripts while those manuscripts are under peer review, a process that often takes over a year (the “Gag Rule”).”
The plaintiffs claim that the publishers unlawfully divert billions of tax-funded dollars yearly from scientific research. According to the class-action complaint, large profits end up with the publishers and their shareholders—none of whom are involved in research—instead of paying for scientific research.
“The for-profit academic publishing industry is in the business of exploiting the goodwill and hard work of brilliant scholars, and of taxpayers who foot the bill to create their product,” Dean M. Harvey, a lawyer for Uddin, said in a recent news release (sic).
Confirming our feelings of an unfair publication system
This lawsuit will take time to conclude and might result in a disappointing agreement between the involved parties. However, it exposes the conflicts between for-profit and science and reaffirms researchers’ experience of unfair conditions. The case also suggests that there are alternatives to this benefit imbalance.
Many researchers acknowledge their exploitation but highlight that the publishing industry should enjoy profits to keep academic publishing active. But why? For-profit academic publishing is a relatively new concept.
Collective initiatives by scientists and institutions were in charge of academic publishing before the 1950s. These community-driven publishing practices, or knowledge commons, were uninterested in commercial success.
“The modern system developed only in the mid-twentieth century. The wartime and postwar expansion of public research funding and consequent expansion and globalisation of research communities were soon exploited by an entrepreneur-led proliferation of increasingly specialised journals, following the lead of Robert Maxwell’s Pergamon Press [acquired by Elsevier in 1991].”
The small society presses were overtaken by the ‘Big 5’ commercial publishers—Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Sage—who industrialized and scaled up academic publishing.
That’s not to say we should unquestionably copy the previous model, which struggled to adjust to expanded demands and requirements. However, it indicates the viability of non-profit alternatives if we adapt them to today’s needs.
Preprint platforms, such as arXiv and bioRxiv, have successfully offered community-driven options relying on the research community’s interest in sharing free research data. Open-access models find new ways to make science accessible, and the recent class-action lawsuit may further incentivize alternatives to the current academic publishing. “Small streams make great rivers.”
This new wave of initiatives to democratize scientific knowledge raises an important question: how can we improve knowledge sharing in research? We’ll explore these alternatives regularly here at Ivory Embassy, so be sure to follow the blog and YouTube channel.
Here’s my conversation with Sheeva Azma about the antitrust class-action action lawsuit, the problems in academic publishing, and what the lawsuit means for scientists and the public.
