Kick-off debate on the future of scientific publishing

On 10 February 2022, the Utrecht University Library in cooperation with the Open Science programme organized a roundtable meeting titled 'How does Open Science affect our publishing strategy'. The aim of this meeting was to have researchers discuss the challenges and opportunities they face during the publication process with the transition to open science.

Opening by Henk Kummeling

After a word of welcome by discussion leader Stans de Haas (Recognition & rewards project leader), Rector Magnificus Henk Kummeling opened the meeting. He talked about the importance of Open Access and the steps Utrecht University has already taken in this regard. "We must also be aware of the cultural changes that accompany this transition and that take time," said the rector. Science itself can determine how and where to publish and Recognition and Rewards plays an important role in this.

Experiences of researchers

Three speakers kicked off the discussion by sharing their personal experiences of publishing in an open science context. 

Tessa Coffeng (postdoc Faculty of Social Sciences) addressed the relation between publishing and impact. She explained how her work at the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) helps her to formulate new and relevant research questions, and to identify professional and scientific journals that are most likely to be read by her target group. 

Amir Raoof (assosciate professor at the Faculty of Geosciences and leader of the Structures of Strength platform for Unusual Collaborations) then emphasized interdisciplinarity and the importance of team science to achieve broader impact and outreach. 

Bert Weckhuysen (Professor, Faculty of Science) emphasized that in his experience scientists have always wanted to share their research openly. He pointed out the risks of commercial use of openly available research. And he wondered aloud whether open access is always better, for example for the quality of research. 

Open publishing & quality

"Have the free newspapers that were handed out at train stations led to better journalism?” Not only access, but also quality is an important challenge and in a world of information, the quality of the information is important.

We must have a robust system for evaluating scientific data.

The comments from the audience were in line with this. Several attendees linked the reputation of journals to the quality of the peer review process. Some saw an opportunity here for grassroots (diamond OA) publishing initiatives since peer review is already provided by the research community and not by the publisher.

Interdisciplinary research is challenging 

The quality of peer reviews also emerged as an obstacle in interdisciplinary research, as disciplines use different quality criteria. It is important to have clear quality standards so that interdisciplinary research can flourish. Especially in interdisciplinary research, it is important that the results are widely available and do not disappear behind a pay wall, Amir Raoof explained.

Interdisciplinary research requires sharing underlying data so that different disciplines can ask their own questions.

For interdisciplinary publications, finding suitable journals proves to be more difficult. The overall experience of the audience is that thematically oriented journals offer a workable solution alongside disciplinary/methodological journals. 

Dissatisfaction with APC-based models 

Several researchers expressed their dissatisfaction with APC-based models (Article Processing Charges). This leads to a blurred balance of power between universities and publishers. Publishers benefit from APCs and publication costs increase.

This is a shared problem. An international perspective is important. Researchers do have access to more publications but publishing in the same journals has become so expensive that not everyone can afford it. Other models were mentioned, such as "Subscribe to Open" and "Diamond Open Access", where the research community collectively funds journals and takes back control of academic publications.