Neuroimage, a top journal in neuroscience, adopts an open access model, charging fees to authors rather than readers for publishing papers. To publish an article in this journal, scholars need to pay an article processing charge (APC) of over $3,450 (approximately 106,000 Taiwanese dollars).
After the publisher refused to lower the fees, the entire editorial board, including professors from the University of Oxford, King’s College London, and Cardiff University, resigned, totaling 42 individuals.
They deemed these charges unethical and unrelated to the costs involved.
📈 Publisher’s Profits Higher Than Google and Amazon
According to The Guardian’s Observer report, the publishing house behind the journal claims to publish 25% of the world’s scientific papers. Last year, their revenue increased by 10% to reach 2.9 billion pounds.
Financial data from 2019 revealed a profit margin of 40%, surpassing that of Google and Amazon. Scholars were outraged since their research is typically funded by charitable organizations and public finances, unrelated to the publisher. Academic editors mutually review papers either for free or receive minimal allowances.
As a result, universities either pay exorbitant subscription fees or scholars who wish to publish papers are charged high publication fees. Chris Chambers, one of the resigned professors and head of cognitive neuroscience at Cardiff University, stated, “Publishers prey on the academic community, reaping enormous profits without adding much value to science.”
Stephen Smith, former editor-in-chief of Neuroimage and a professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Oxford, expressed, “The academic community as a whole doesn’t really like the current situation, but as individuals, we feel powerless to make large publishers more ethical.”
The publisher’s spokesperson also responded, saying, “We highly value our editors and are disappointed about this (resignation), especially as we have been in constructive contact with them over the past few years.”
The spokesperson further claimed that the publication fees for the journal are relatively lower than the market average considering the quality, and they are lower than those charged by the closest comparable journals in the field.
🔍 Original Team Establishes a New Journal
After discussions, the resigned editors decided to establish a new journal within the non-profit publishing organization, MIT Press.
The new journal is named “Imaging Neuroscience” and focuses on brain and spinal cord imaging in humans and other species, including neurophysiology and stimulation methods.
Similarly, the new journal adopts an open access model and aims to replace Neuroimage as the leading journal in the field. According to the statement on its newly launched official website, the target is to set the publication fees at half or even lower than Neuroimage.
Additionally, they will waive publication fees for low-income or middle-income countries. Professor Stephen Smith continues to serve as the editor-in-chief of the new journal.
He believes that researchers were able to tolerate high fees in the past because they wanted to publish their work in prestigious journals to advance their careers and ensure their work is widely read and cited.
Now, by taking the entire editorial team with him, the reputation they previously built will also transfer to the new journal.