Hello fellow journalologists,
This week’s newsletter starts with a section devoted to US news and opinion, focusing mostly on stories that directly (rather than indirectly) affect our industry.
Research Output Trends Over the Past 25 Years
On Tuesday I sent you a video that explored how research publishing has changed over the past 25 years. Click the image below to watch it on YouTube.
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US news and opinion
This Declaration is a call to action for the scholarly communication community and additional stakeholders to condemn and resist recent and ongoing acts by the U.S. government to censor scholarly research. Show your support by clicking this link to SIGN the Declaration:
https://tinyurl.com/3bwuc38f. All are welcome to sign, from any nation or occupation.
Drafted by Lisa Schiff, Alice Meadows, Catherine Mitchell, Sara Rouhi, and Peter Suber
JB: This declaration is gaining traction. Alice Meadows wrote an accompanying post in The Scholarly Kitchen.
Only a handful of organisations have signed up so far (for example: AUPresses Supports Anti-Censorship Declaration), with the vast majority of signatories being from individuals.
Once you’ve signed this declaration you may want to add your paw print to this open letter, asking the Royal Society to consider Elon Musk’s fellowship.
The Lancet Group will be making no changes to our editorial policies regarding withdrawal, authorship change, inclusive language, or retraction. Ahead of publication, the withdrawal of submitted papers and authorship changes will only generally be considered if the written agreement of all authors is received. The Lancet Group will continue to recommend the use of inclusive language, accepting authors’ ultimate choice of terminology when it is scientifically accurate and respectful, and will continue to encourage authors to follow the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) reporting guidelines. Published papers will only be corrected or retracted when they contain factual errors or if scientific misconduct has taken place. These policies are in line with recently issued guidance from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
The Lancet Group (announcement)
JB: The Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) reporting guidelines were published in Research Integrity and Peer Review in 2016. EASE published a SAGER checklist to accompany the guidelines and CSE has a useful hub page too.
Second, we remain steadfast in our guidance to authors and readers across the JAMA Network journals and endorse and adhere to the standards set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. We also recognize the realities of the current environment and the specific injunctions some authors may be under and the broader concerns of others. We are committed to working with authors to publish in accordance with the highest standards for scientific and editorial integrity. We will act flexibly, where appropriate, to ensure that censoring efforts will not silence the integrity of the scientific process or clear communication of scientific information important for health. Authors and editors have a shared goal of ensuring the broad and faithful dissemination of scientific findings, and we will strive to pursue this goal regardless of the external environment.
JAMA (Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo et al)
JB: This article references the ICMJE Guidance Notice. The ICMJE is very influential within the clinical publishing community. I’ve often wondered why other broad specialties haven’t created something similar.
JAMA published a helpful Viewpoint in 2016 (Reporting Sex, Gender, or Both in Clinical Research?) and in August last year four JAMA editors wrote Draft Guidance on Reporting Gender, Sex, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Age in Medical and Scientific Publication—Call for Review and Comment.
PLOS will not compromise on issues of scientific rigor and editorial integrity. Our editorial policies, designed to safeguard the integrity of the peer review process and ensure the accuracy, reliability, and accountability of published research, remain unchanged. We will not approve changes to terminology or removal of data that compromise the scientific accuracy of content. Requests to remove legitimate authors from manuscripts violate our authorship policies which are grounded in principles of credit, accountability and transparency. Our editorial policies ensure that we work within a framework of agreed-upon standards and practices that foster consistency and maintain accuracy across the scientific community.
The Official PLOS Blog (announcement)
JB: Publishers from all regions of the world have been weighing up whether to publish a statement in response to events in the USA. Most haven’t done so. PLOS is part publisher and part advocacy organisation; it seems entirely appropriate for them to go where others fear to tread.
The article describes the censorship, bullying, and fear that are suddenly the day-to-day experience of US researchers who took an oath to the constitution and “not to a president or political party.” The researcher describes the removal of data relevant to vulnerable communities as “digital genocide,” painting a picture of a dystopian world or a totalitarian regime where official publications that share information on diseases are mothballed and epidemiological surveillance systems no longer function, allowing infectious diseases to flourish unmonitored and unchecked.
The BMJ (Kamran Abbasi)
JB: You can read the anonymous article that Kamran refers to here. In a separate editorial Kamran writes:
It may now be unfashionable and politically damaging to stand for EDI, but it is important to do exactly that. It is also evidence based, creating a more satisfied workforce and a healthier population. Supporting an end to discrimination is now akin to fighting for a rebel alliance against the onward march of imperial forces—which creates a neat resonance with people who say that we should move on from EDI and instead argue for JEDI (justice, equality, diversity, and inclusion).
JEDI was a new term to me. In 2021 Scientific American published an article: Why the Term 'JEDI' Is Problematic for Describing Programs That Promote Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
The Jedi are inappropriate mascots for social justice. Although they’re ostensibly heroes within the Star Wars universe, the Jedi are inappropriate symbols for justice work. They are a religious order of intergalactic police-monks, prone to (white) saviorism and toxically masculine approaches to conflict resolution (violent duels with phallic lightsabers, gaslighting by means of “Jedi mind tricks,” etc.). The Jedi are also an exclusionary cult, membership to which is partly predicated on the possession of heightened psychic and physical abilities (or “Force-sensitivity”).
It is worth highlighting that the industry faced a similar dilemma in late 2017, as several leading scholarly publishers encountered state pressure to amend content collections in China. Like now, there was public outcry and calls for a coordinated stand against censorship complicity. But industry coordination was not forthcoming. I interviewed publishers from 2019 to 2022 across all levels of seniority to understand the conditions of self-censorship in China. The barriers to collective action were deep rooted. Interviewees described an absence of agency to resist. For most, responsibility lay elsewhere: management boards; trade bodies; even academic editors and their research communities, failing to hold publishers accountable to their own standards. Decisions were taken in a climate of fear and uncertainty about the consequences of censorship compliance and the penalties for resistance.
The Bookseller (George Cooper)
JB: The analogy with China is a good one; history often repeats itself.
A cornerstone of SSP’s strategic plan is to foster DEIA in our community through demonstrated leadership to expand the diversity of professionals working in scholarly communications. During these uncertain and stressful times, the SSP Board of Directors remains firmly dedicated to our core values of community, inclusivity, adaptability, and integrity, and we are unwavering in our commitment to DEIA.
SSP Society for Scholarly Publishing (announcement)
Publishing news
Relx, the parent company of academic publishing giant Elsevier, has reported a 10 per cent underlying growth in its adjusted operating profit for 2024, reaching just under £3.2 billion from revenues of £9.43bn.
Within this, the scientific, technical and medical arm of the company—which includes its publishing business—had an adjusted operating profit of £1.17bn, with underlying growth of five per cent.
This arm had revenue of £3.05bn, giving it an adjusted operating margin of 38.4 per cent, the company reported on 13 February.
Research Professional News (Craig Nicholson)
JB: RELX presented two slide deck to investors (see investor homepage). One on the 2024 results and another that provided an overview of the business for investors.
Slides 37 and 38 provide an insight into the journals primary research growth. In 2015 Elsevier received 1.3 million submissions, which increased to 3.5 million last year (+11% CAGR). Published articles grew by +7% CAGR from 0.4m to 0.7m (CAGR = compound annual growth rate).
Slides 39 and 40 show Elsevier’s large market share of high quality content.
The Q&A transcripts of the investor calls are always interesting. The investor call was held on February 13, so the investors had questions about the developments in the USA.
One investor asked whether Elsevier is seeing more universities drop the Big Deal. Erik Engstrom replied:
The long-term trends are very clear that our customers tend to be taking larger and larger shares of what we serve them, and they also tend to have more and complex combinations of services in their agreements with us, whether that involves portions of pay-to-read and pay-to-publish and other types of things that we can offer them. So the bottom line on it is there’s no trend break, we are continuing to see strong growth.
Another investor asked about the strong growth in submissions and received this reply:
I personally believe that the submission growth rates to us are going to normalise relatively soon, and that over the next five years or 10 years will likely get back to an average of submission growth to us in the high single digits in the typical year. But that's a personal opinion. I can't tell you any direct mathematical evidence that that's happening. At this point in time, it's continuing to go strongly, but I would expect that to moderate over time.
In other news, on Thursday this week: Dutch research institutions and Elsevier announce new agreements.
The new read and publish agreement reaffirms the commitment of the research community in the Netherlands to open access. The agreement continues to provide Dutch researchers with reading rights to the peer-reviewed content from Elsevier’s portfolio of journals via ScienceDirect.
Some UK university library budgets have been cut by as much as 30 per cent, with the library sector now spending an estimated £51 million less this academic year than in the previous 12 months, new analysis shows.
Drawing on survey responses from 104 university libraries, the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) finds about three-quarters of libraries (73 per cent) are making cuts in their budget ranging from 1 per cent to 30 per cent, with an average mean cut of 8 per cent.
Times Higher Education (Jack Grove)
The platform’s advanced architecture, modular integration capabilities, and service model deliver the core functionality and strong foundation upon which ACS can differentiate their products, while Silverchair's independence, culture of collaboration, and client-led development combine to make them the ideal choice for this next-generation delivery platform.
Silverchair (announcement)
JB: The American Chemical Society (ACS) was the seventh largest independent publisher of research articles in 2024 (source: Dimensions, Digital Science), and the second largest academic society publisher (after IEEE), so this is a big contract for Silverchair. You may remember that Silverchair received financial investment from Thompson Street Capital Partners in 2022. This was the rationale given at the time:
Silverchair’s partnership with TSCP will enable the company to accelerate the pace and scale at which it develops comprehensive digital transformation products, including new products for professional education and meetings content. The investment will also support the continued expansion of the core Silverchair Platform and recruiting scholarly publishers to join the Silverchair community, which has grown in recent years to represent more than 400 publishers.
As we begin our 60th year, we review how our independence frees us to serve the higher education community and beyond. In our latest Independence with Impact Report, we highlight how actions such as championing critical thinking, offering tools and technology that support research impact, and actively advocating for academic freedom are building bridges to knowledge. We detail our continued commitment to nurturing a diverse and inclusive culture, ensuring that our workforce reflects the varied communities we serve and the environments in which we operate.
Sage Publishing (announcement)
JB: This is an annual report, which you can read here.
Still, a general picture emerges of an institutional retraction-rate leader board that is dominated by small Chinese hospitals and medical universities. In the Dimensions data set, over 2014–24, around 70% of the 136 institutions with a retraction rate above 1% are from China, and about 60% of those are hospitals or medical universities. The Argos data set, with 186 institutions with rates above 1%, gives a similar split. Signals shared only its top-ten lists, again dominated by Chinese institutions.
Nature (Richard van Noorden)
JB: I particularly appreciated the fact that Richard used three separate integrity tools for this analysis.
Nature ran an editorial in the same issue: Why retractions data could be a powerful tool for cleaning up science.
In many cases, the retractions were linked to many authors at an institution, not to one or two bad apples. This suggests that, although individual researchers are ultimately responsible for their misconduct and mistakes, there might be perverse incentives at those institutions — or countries — that promote that behaviour.
Meanwhile, Chemical & Engineering News published a letter to the editor about Retractions of Ethiopian-affiliated papers, which relates to another of Richard’s news stories in Nature from 2023.
The 3,000+ journals in the Springer Nature portfolio published over 482,000 articles in 2024, according to data published this week on a new research integrity page on the company’s website. The page also shares a data point you don’t typically get from publishers: 2,923 articles were retracted.
61.5% (1797 articles) of the retractions were of papers published before January 2023. 38.5% (1126) of retractions were for articles published after January 2023. 41% of the retractions for content published after January 2023 were for open access articles.
Retraction Watch (Kate Travis)
JB: You can see the new page here. Transparency is always a good thing. Mind you, one commentator on the Retraction Watch article was less than enthusiastic:
This ‘transparency’ is nothing of the sort. The data trumpeted by the SN staff are readily available by searching the RW database. The content on RW and published analyses of outcomes of assessments of integrity concerns indicate slow, opaque, inconsistent and incomplete processes are common. If publishers wish journal readers to believe they are doing a great job of maintaining publication integrity they should provide more than a bit of frothy verbiage.
The International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS), a scientific society based in Belgium, owns the journal and contracts with Wiley to publish it.
The IAS had run an operating deficit since its 2021-22 fiscal year, and began discussing “legal, financial, and strategic considerations” in October 2023, according to a letter from IAS acting president Daniel Ariztegui to its members. These moves included changes to the handling of manuscripts and copy-editing at Sedimentology and an amendment to the society’s contract with Wiley.
Retraction Watch (Ellie Kincaid)
In the tense political environment for science around the world, authors and journals also will be called upon to defend scientific consensus on matters that have been considered closed for decades, such as whether vaccines cause autism, whether humans are causing climate change, and whether HIV causes AIDS. Attacking individual studies is a common tactic to undermine entire fields. The scientific community can respond effectively only if the public believes that when there is a problem, it will be quickly corrected. As difficult and scary as it is to talk to tough reporters and critics, the alternative can be far worse.
Science (H. Holden Thorp)
JB: This article will be of interest to press officers at publishers and universities alike: Some guidance for authors on engaging with media
By integrating Molecular Connections’ AI-powered innovations and >3000+ domain experts with EOL’s proven peer review management expertise, this collaboration promises to deliver customer-centric, technology-enabled solutions that redefine efficiency, ensure faster turnaround times, and uphold the highest standards of research integrity for journal editors.
Molecular Connections (press release)
JB: Acquisitions are like buses. You wait ages for one and then two come along at once (Molecular Connections recently acquired Morressier).
The stealth corrections presented in this paper demonstrate a fundamental and mostly ignored problem in the scientific literature. Correct documentation and transparency are of the utmost importance to uphold scientific integrity and the trustworthiness of science. Post-publication changes need to be clear for readers to understand if, and why, changes have been made. However, little attention is paid to post-publication alterations.
Learned Publishing (René Aquarius et al)
The Fund, launched with the proceeds of Bik’s Einstein Award, will provide financial resources to Bik and other sleuths and collaborators, as well as provide funding for training programs, grants, or awards for science integrity advocates. Plans also include funding educational or outreach initiatives promoting transparency and accountability in scientific research. Based on a fiscal sponsorship model, and leveraging our experience in nonprofit development and administration, Bik will have full direction over the Fund’s resources.
Retraction Watch (announcement)
JB: Elisabeth Bik has donated her $200,000 prize to launch this fund. It would be good to see one of the industry bodies, or even individual companies, match it. Each grant will only be a few hundred dollars, according to a story in Science.
Digital Science has awarded its latest Catalyst Grants to two innovative teams, supporting their technology ideas aimed at safeguarding research integrity and strengthening trust in science.
The winners will use the funding and mentorship from Digital Science to develop their ideas, both of which include enhanced dashboards – visualizations based on available data – to flag retracted or questionable research papers.
Digital Science (press release)
JB: Is anyone else struggling to keep up with the number of new research integrity tools? The two winners are PostPub and VIRUS (you can find out more in this video)
PostPub, which has already established its own Retraction Dashboard, will draw on Digital Science data to extend the dashboard. The dashboard will visualize gaps in the data-sharing practices of researchers across countries and journals, and journal response times when integrity issues are flagged, and will flag irregular activity. PostPub also aims to create a notification system to alert responsible parties about these irregularities, and to track actions taken, helping to improve accountability in research.
This is the summary for VIRUS:
This team is developing a real-time visualization system and dashboard intended to be used by scientific “sleuths”, as well as research integrity teams from publishers, editorial teams in journals, and universities. The system will keep records of papers that have been flagged as questionable, as well as their impact on several scholarly measures – such as citations, altmetrics, and policy attention – to better understand the potentially harmful impact these papers could have.
In separate news, Springer Nature now has a new research integrity tool.
Springer Nature’s journal editors are getting a new, AI-powered tool that gives them the power to quickly and easily identify and remove unsound submissions. It works by finding fundamental flaws that make these submissions unsuitable for publication. So that, without much time or effort, editors can stop these submissions from clogging the review pipeline; and that means more capacity and efficiency for submissions that ought to be reviewed (and published when they pass review).
This third tool, which seems to be unnamed, joins SnappShot and Geppetto.
The expansion of the European Union’s open-access publishing platform through a new partnership with 10 national research organisations could be crucial in boosting the platform’s prestige and visibility, experts have said.
Previously, only EU programme grantees were eligible to publish in Open Research Europe (ORE), which launched in 2021. Last month, however, the European Commission announced that 10 research organisations across eight countries had agreed to collaboratively fund the platform for at least five years, expanding eligibility to “all researchers from participating countries and institutions”.
Times Higher Education (Emily Dixon)
JB: Trust is important. So is speed, a fair peer review process, prestige and (unfortunately)... impact factors. As Rob Johnson rightly points out in the article, ORE is likely to take time to gain traction.
The pilot program, which began on January 21, 2025, supports authors across 33 countries in Latin America, including in Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean, to publish research in Wiley’s portfolio of nearly 600 gold open access journals. Discounts on Article Publication Charges (APCs) are applied in direct relationship to the Purchasing Power Index (PPI) value of each participating country, informed by data from the World Bank International Comparison Program. The anticipated timeline for the pilot is 12 months, with a mid-term review to inform future actions.
Wiley (press release)
JB: You can read more about this pilot here. There was another, related, development this week: Wiley Joins India's Landmark One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) Initiative, Expanding Research Access. The original ONOS announcement was light on details regarding exactly which publishers signed up.
We have updated the lists of journals in which corresponding authors from our partner countries can publish in open access for free or at discounted Article Processing Charges (APCs).
In 2024 we renewed expiring agreements that include an open access publishing component, and also signed two new agreements: the Microbiology Society agreed to provide free publishing in all of the Society’s six fully open access (gold) journals, and DeGruyter agreed to include publishing in their journals in addition to providing access to read.
We start 2025 with agreements with 15 publishers allowing authors from EIFL partner countries to publish in open access at waived or discounted APCs in 2,927 journals (379 more journals than in 2024), across a wide array of disciplines.
EIFL (announcement)
JB: If you haven't heard of EIFL before, here’s an overview:
EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) is a not-for-profit organization that works with libraries to enable access to knowledge in developing and transition economy countries in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe and Latin America.
You can see a list of the publishing partners here.
Frontiers has renewed its national open access agreement with Norway for 2025, reinforcing a shared commitment to advancing open science. Originally signed in 2020, this agreement - facilitated by the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (Sikt) - streamlines the publishing process for Norwegian researchers and strengthens the country’s leadership in open access publishing.
JB: You may remember that at the end of last year Finland Publication Forum will downgrade hundreds of Frontiers and MDPI journals.
Other publishers have also signed new agreements in past 2 weeks:
California Universities and Oxford University Press Sign Landmark Open Access Agreement
Springer Nature’s transformative agreement (TA) with Couperin sees number of participating French institutions more than double
France dropped from 6th to 13th place between 2010 and 2022 in a global ranking of overall publication outputs from the High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (Hcéres), a national oversight body.
But this relative decline is less pronounced in English language publications and in the most cited global journals, Hcéres and the OST, France’s national science and technology observatory, observed in a report published on 18 February.
Research Professional News (James Brooks)
JB: You can download the report here.
Other news stories
Antibodies.com and Cactus Communications Partner to Accelerate Life Science Manuscript Publication
The DOI for Scholarly Publishing recognized as the inaugural winner of the Rosenblum Award for Scholarly Publishing Impact
SEG Partners with GeoScienceWorld to Enhance Publishing Operations
ResearchGate and Taylor & Francis expand Journal Home partnership to 595 journals and activate Open Access Agreement Upgrade
ResearchGate and De Gruyter Brill expand Journal Home partnership to cover 60 journals and activate Open Access Agreement Upgrade
ALMASI, a global Diamond OA project, takes off
IEEE Has a Pseudoscience Problem
Journal Checker Tool (JCT): user feedback survey
OASPA and the year ahead
Wiley journal retracts 26 papers for ‘compromised peer review’
Three ways I can support you |
And finally...
If you watched the video I shared earlier this week, please fill out the below poll to let me know if the idea of more video content makes you want to cheer, groan or shrug your shoulders with indifference.
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Until next time,
James
