Abstract
Open-access publishing involves a business model where authors pay
article processing charges, and subsequently, the article is freely
available online. For African researchers, the shift to open access
publishing flips the business model from a pay-wall model, where
accessing literature is difficult, to a pay-to-play one, where it is
difficult to publish. We explore costs of publishing in the 40 top
ecology journals and the ability of African scholars to pay for open
access. Three quarters of journals required payment for open-access
publishing and the average cost was $3,150. Paying such fees would be a
hardship for African scholars as grant funding is not available.
Furthermore, it is not feasible for Africa scholars to pay the fees
themselves as salaries are low. We encourage funders and publishers to
facilitate a more equitable publishing realm where African scholars can
see their research made available through open-access.
Humanity is facing unprecedented environmental challenges, and nowhere
will these challenges be greater than in Africa. Over the next century,
Africa’s population is projected to quadruple (UN 2015), the impact of
climate change will be severe (Niang et al. 2014), and
environmental conflict is projected to rise sharply (Laurance et
al. 2014). It is widely recognized that grappling with these challenges
will require substantial investment in the continent’s research capacity
(Atickem et al. 2019). Yet, African scholars are disadvantaged by
their inability to access scientific information (pay to access journal
articles) and pay to publish their research in the best journals. Most
African Universities cannot afford institutional journal fees; thus,
their faculty have limited access to the latest published research. Such
disadvantages have been recognized for some time (Solomon & Björk
2012a; Björk 2017) and strategies to mitigate them have been put in
place. Governments, funders, and publishers responded to this with
strategies to facilitate faculty access to literature. For example,
Research4Life, working with WHO, FAO, UNEP, and 180 international
publishers, provides institutions in low-and middle-income countries
with online access to 111,255 books and 28,920 journals in health,
agriculture, the environment and other life, physical and social
sciences. But the publishing world
is rapidly changing, and the academic community must adapt.
One way the academic landscape is changing deals with open access. The
push to open access publishing began in 2000 (Solomon & Björk 2016) and
is seen as an excellent way of providing access for everyone to journal
articles. However, open-access publishing is a business model where
authors or their institutions pay article processing charges prior to
publication, and subsequently, the article is freely available online to
all. At this time these processing charges are beyond the reach of most
African academics and their institutions, with the consequence that
African research is underrepresented by the open access model. This is a
concern as the number of open access publications funded by article
processing charges is increasing exponentially (Solomon & Björk 2016).
Open access is likely to continue to increase as a group of European
science funders and international foundations launched Plan S 20 in
2018, which requires a commitment to open-access publishing to receive
funding (Rabesandratana 2018; Else 2021). The plan prohibits researchers
who receive funding from the 11 agencies involved (that together grant
over 8.8 US$ billion) from publishing in non-open access journals,
which include 85% of all journals and influential journals such as
Nature and Science (Else 2018) ((but see recent changes Else 2021)).
Additionally, open access publishing will increase in ecology because it
confers a citation advantage that is independent of the economic status
of the author’s country (Tang et al. 2017). As researchers are
increasingly evaluated for promotion and grants by the number of
citations and their h-index (Chapman et al. 2019), there is
considerable pressure to pay article processing charges. However, open
access is expensive, even by wealthy country standards: a 2019
evaluation of open access publishing for Biology found that the cost per
article was $3,769 USD. For most African scholars, moving to open
access publishing is not within reach. The shift to an open access
publishing model could simply flip the business model from a pay-wall
model, where accessing literature is difficult, to a pay-to-play or
‘play-wall’ one, where it is
difficult to have your research published (Green 2019). As open access
publishing becomes the norm, it will be increasingly difficult for
African Scholars to fully engage in the scientific process.
In this commentary, we explore
the costs of publishing in the top-ranked ecology journals. We review
what steps journals have taken to accommodate low-income country
authors. We provide information on the availability of research funds
from our home countries, illustrating the ability to pay article
processing charges from in-country sources, the salaries of professors
at Universities in Africa, illustrating the ability of individuals to
pay), and the cost of student tuition and research, showing what the
gains would be if funds for publishing were used for training.
We evaluated information on open access publishing for the top-ranked 40
ecology journals listed in the Journal Citation Reports from ISI Web of
Knowledge (Table S1). For each journal, we reviewed information on open
access, the article processing charges, and waivers for low-income
countries. In many instances, it was not clear when article processing
charges would be levied; thus, we wrote to all editors for clarification
and all responded. It became apparent that publishers granted the
journal and the editors flexibility in how article processing charges
were levied, so different journals associated with the same large
publishers (e.g., Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley) have different
policies. This would appear to allow journals to respond to the research
community they serve in an adaptive manner, which we view as a very
positive approach.
Two of the top 40 journals were fully open access and for each of these
journals there was no waiver option available for African scholars. Two
of the journals were invitation only and were not considered further.
Two journals did not have the open access option. Excluding the two
journals that were invitation only (n=38), most (24, 63.2%) were hybrid
journals that did not offer waivers for open access publishing, but it
was possible to publish for free under the subscription model with the
article being available behind a paywall. Nine journals (23.7%)
provided a full open access waiver for African scholars. Four of the
journals (10.5%) did not offer a waiver for African scholars for either
open access or the subscription model and an author would have to pay.
One journal did not have a waiver for open access, but provided a waiver
for paying under the subscription model. For those journals with article
processing charges, the average
cost was $3,150. Editors and journal websites referred readers to
Research4Life to indicate if the author’s country was eligible for a
waiver. However, Research4Life indicated that if an author from a
low-income had co-authors from high income countries, they are
ineligible for a waiver. However, upon inquiry with the editors, this
requirement does not seem to be enforced, and as long as the
corresponding author is from a low-income country the waiver was granted
and the African researcher would not have to turn to his high-income
country scholars to ask for support to publish. There was only one
journal that levied the full-page charges if there were co-authors from
high income countries. We would like to point out that if discount is
only available when all authors are from Africa, it puts the African
scholar in the inappropriate situation where they must repeatedly ask
their international collaborators to pay to publish the research they
lead.
Only 7.9% of journals asked low-income scholars to pay to publish.
However, of those that were not invitation only and offered open access,
three quarters of journals ask for
payment for publishing open-access research. Open access publishing
provides a citation advantage (Tang et al. 2017) and the open
access model will likely increasingly dominate academic publishing
leaving African scholars and their research findings disadvantaged,
unless actions are taken to make the situation equitable.
Paying article processing fees of around $3000 is a hardship for
African scholars, as most African countries do not have grant programs
that cover publication costs. In general, sub-Saharan African countries
invest only 1.3% of what North American and Western European countries
spend on research and development – thus, for every $100 spent on
research in North America and Western Europe, African governments spend
on average $1.30 (Purchase Power Parity expenditures (UNESCO 2021)).
Consequently, grant funding is simply not available to pay article
processing fees. There are no national grant funds available in
Ethiopia, Madagascar, or Uganda to pay publication related expenses. In
Nigeria the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) provides
supplementary support for the general improvement of tertiary education.
One of the key areas supported by the fund is research and publication,
however these grants are highly competitive, few lecturers obtain
funding, and the grants allow only $300 to cover publishing. South
Africa is not considered a low-income country and is not eligible for
waivers to publish or access literature through groups such as
Research4Life. South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF) was
established in 1999 to support research and innovation. Some
universities in South Africa (e.g., University of KwaZulu-Natal) do
offer some internal support to cover page charges in the top ecology
journals.
Only 10% of researchers in ecology, botany, and zoology in North
America and Europe always or often have access to funds for paying
article processing fees (Cookson 2012). Thus, researchers often pay the
fees to publish personally. It is simply not feasible for Africa
scholars to pay the fees themselves as salaries are relatively low
(e.g., the monthly salary for a starting professor in Uganda is $2,300,
in Tanzania it is $2027, in South Africa it is $1250, in Madagascar it
is $531, and in Ethiopia it is $365). As grant money is typically very
difficult to obtain for African scholars, if they do use grant money to
pay the article processing charges, it would mean they may have to
forego research or student support. This would be a shame as grant money
can go a long way to helping graduate training. For example, in Uganda
paying the article processing fee for two articles is the equivalent of
funding the tuition and field expenses for a Masters student. In
Madagascar, paying the article processing charges for one paper would
cover the expenses of a typical Masters student. In Ethiopia, the
article processing fee for one article would cover the tuition and field
expenses for nearly two Masters students and in Nigeria it would cover
the expenses for three Masters students. In South Africa paying for four
papers equals the costs of a Masters student.
In recent decades, there has been a rapid shift to open access
publishing and there is every indication that this trend will grow. This
is a very positive development for African scholars because with
reliable internet it is possible to keep up to date on international
research. However, conversely, African scholars currently cannot afford
to publish in some of the best journals. As a result, we are encouraged
to see deliberations on how to make the business model used in academic
publishing more globally equitable (Solomon & Björk 2012b, a; Green
2019; Björk 2021). Academics should keep in mind that journals are, for
the most part, for-profit businesses with profit margins reaching as
high as 40% (Buranyi 2017). In fact, in 2017 the global revenues from
scientific publishing were estimated to be US$24 billion, and in 2010
the profit margins were higher than Apple, Google, or Amazon (Buranyi
2017). However, publication charges account for only a tiny fraction of
the global research and development budget (Else 2018), thus exploring
creative ways to maintain equity and diversity in research publishing,
such as Research4Life, should be encouraged.
Having research articles available to African researchers through open
publishing business models would advance science on this continent and
we applaud the efforts of those funders and publishers who are promoting
the accessibility of research to all and creating a more equitable
publishing realm. Strategies to make research truly open access, with no
pay walls or article processing charges, should be explored (Beall 2013;
Teschke 2018). Such advances will promote African research and training
and will be needed if we are to grapple with the environmental
challenges that Africa is going to face in the coming years.