Open Access and Other Publishing License Agreements

Springer Nature: “Strong Business Performance in the First Nine Months of 2025. Full Year 2025 Guidance Reiterated”

Research, the company’s largest segment, reported revenue of €1,112.6 million (9M 2024: €1,044.4 million) with underlying growth of 7.0% driven by the Journals portfolio, with particular strength in Full Open Access (FOA). The number of published articles rose by more than 10% across the whole portfolio and over 25% in FOA journals.

In the first nine months, Springer Nature completed its 2025 contract renewals and the new contract renewal season, which began in September, is progressing as expected. During the first nine months of 2025, Springer Nature has signed 18 transformative agreements to further accelerate the shift to open access, with one new agreement signed in Q3, bringing the total of transformative agreements in place to 84.

Book revenues grew in the first nine months in both digital and print book formats. Print growth reflects the comparison against a weaker performance last year and positive phasing of distributor orders in the third quarter of 2025. Digital continues to represent around 70% of book sales. Services revenues benefited from good growth in text and data mining (TDM) solutions for corporate customers, offset by a more challenging market for talent-related services in the US.

The company continued to invest in a range of initiatives to support growth and ensure research integrity. It also maintained a focus on developing AI tools to transform the publication process, provide more value to our communities and create new revenue streams. Nature Research Assistant, an AI tool designed to speed up some of the most time-consuming parts of the research process, has been well received and is now being used by more than 8,000 beta users.

Adjusted operating profit in Research grew 8.2% in underlying terms to €351.5 million, exceeding the growth in revenue during the period.

https://tinyurl.com/2s3nm2t4

“Game Developers’ Perspectives on Licensing Digital Games to Libraries for Curation and Access”

The article reports on exploratory research conducted with independent game developers to better understand their attitudes and perspectives on major aspects of electronic resource licensing and collection management. The research finds that independent game developers are largely in line with library practices and values, indicating a strong foundation for generative collaboration.

https://doi.org/10.1080/1941126X.2025.2581381

“When the Sky is Not the Limit: Managing Capped Open Access Agreements”

This paper features a dialogue between a consortium, two large research university libraries, and a large commercial publisher on the opportunities and challenges of setting up cost-neutral open access publishing agreements and managing capped allocations. The authors provide perspectives on the role of capped agreements in their negotiations, campus communications, workflows, and business processes as they navigate how to make open access publishing agreements work for everyone—consortia, universities, libraries, authors, researchers, and publishers.

https://tinyurl.com/bdf8y6y7

Embracing the Complexity of ‘100% OA’: From Percentage to Participation Creators

The open access movement has achieved remarkable progress over two decades, reaching over 50% of research articles and conference papers by 2023. Yet we now face a new challenge: growth is slowing, and the remaining transition appears more complex than the progress achieved so far. This position paper acknowledges an uncomfortable tension: any solutions we can hypothesise today feel uncertain because we face problems that operate at different scales, require different types of interventions, and exceed any single organisation’s capacity to solve.

Feedback from OASPA stakeholders has identified key priorities including removing barriers so all scholars worldwide can publish and share openly, enabling open access for every subject area, and enabling scholarly communication between speakers of different languages. These priorities share a fundamental thread: they concern participation and go beyond the long-standing focus on access.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17348122

Paywall: “Assessing the Academic and Societal Impact of Open Access: Bibliometric and Altmetric Analyses”

The findings show that Bronze OA [free to read and no CC license] is associated with higher levels of bibliometric and altmetric indicators. Hybrid-Gold OA demonstrated citation and altmetric gains that closely approached those of Bronze OA, with the highest levels of mentions. In contrast, Closed Access exhibits the highest usage metrics. Additionally, a greater number of authors corresponds with higher bibliometric and altmetric values. The relationship between academic impact and societal engagement has strengthened in recent years, particularly for Open Access publications. . .. Furthermore, publications with high academic impact, strong societal engagement, and multiple authors are more commonly associated with Open Access status. The association between societal engagement and academic impact appears strongest among high-impact publications, whereas author count shows greater explanatory power among lower-impact work.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-025-05436-6

“‘Yes’ to Transparent Service Fees, ‘No’ to Fees That Charge Authors to Exercise Their Rights”

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Chemical Society (ACS) have introduced new fees targeting authors who exercise their right to self-archive accepted manuscripts under a CC BY license. cOAlition S opposes these charges because they penalize authors for complying with open access policies.

This blog post by Bodo Stern (Chief of Strategic Initiatives at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute) and Rachel Bruce (Head of Open Research Strategy, UK Research and Innovation) proposes an alternative: replace these rights-infringing fees with a transparent, service-based model. Would such a fee-for-service model for appraisal services be a better way forward?

https://tinyurl.com/2pahyya5

Recommendations for Scholarly Publishers and Journal Editors to Mitigate Barriers to Open Access Publishing for Researchers with Weak Institutional Ties

The recommendations aim to provide a basis for keeping the publication process as free as possible from barriers for authors with weak institutional ties, in order to enable an inclusive and epistemically just scientific publication system. The recomendations were developed at the TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology in the course of the IDAHO project (IDentificAtion of Hurdles to Open Access Publishing for Researchers with Weak Institutional Ties: Epistemic Injustice in Scientific Publishing). The project focused on the obstacles faced by researchers with weak institutional ties in open access publishing. The recommendations were derived based on qualitative and quantitative studies with weakly-affiliated researchers and scientific journals editors

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17418990

“Impact of Open Access on Academic Visibility: A Systematic Review of the Literature”

The evidence shows that OA enhances academic visibility but in a heterogeneous manner. Green OA and preprints consistently increase citations and accelerate readership, while Gold OA produces mixed outcomes: positive in medicine and biology, but neutral or negative in economics, library science, and translation studies. Altmetrics highlight OA’s broader societal impact, especially in the humanities and social sciences, where freely available works attract attention from social media, blogs and policy documents. International collaboration strengthens the OA advantage, while disparities remain across regions, particularly in Africa and Asia. Publication costs, repository infrastructure and editorial practices further influence outcomes.

https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2025-0216

“Comparing Companion Open Access Journals to Their Traditional Journal Counterparts”

Background

Many traditional journals have launched companion open access (cOA) journals with similar scope and aims. These journals seek better article dissemination through removal of the paywall and use of article processing charges (APCs). Traditional journals often suggest transfer to their cOA journal, leaving authors with a decision to accept transfer and pay an APC or resubmit elsewhere. We aim to compare costs and impact of these journals to better inform authors.

Methods

The top 15 U.S.-based traditional journals within medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and OB/GYN were identified based on 2023 impact factor. Those with cOA journals were included, and all publication data between 2011 and 2023 were extracted. Citation counts were compared using Poisson regression; author demographics were analyzed using multivariable logistic regression.

Results

There were 14 traditional journals with cOA counterparts, constituting 52,232 publications from 36,577 authors. cOA articles had half the citations of traditional publications (9.4 vs 18.2) and collected an estimated $35 million in APCs. Female and low/middle income country (LMIC) authors were more likely to publish in cOA journals (aOR = 1.23, 1.14, respectively).

Conclusions

Authors publishing in companion open access journals incur higher publication costs, and yet, receive fewer citations per publication.

https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2025.2575211

“The Impact of Transformative Agreements on Reading and Publishing Behavior”

Academic librarians often work to educate and guide authors, fostering trust within the ever-changing processes of academic publishing. This article analyzes collection development decisions by assessing the outcomes of a six-year period of contracts between a big five publisher and an academic library that culminated in a transformative agreement. Funded institutional authors were surveyed to investigate the impact of the publish portion of the transformative agreement on their open access choices. Authors were more likely to choose hybrid publishing in cases where they had not considered the option. The library’s position, situated between the needs of authors and publishers, is increasingly one of limited funds and limited authority.

https://doi.org/10.58997/fx80dy21

Publishing Futures: Working Together to Deliver Radical Change in Academic Publishing

This is a collective action problem of major proportions. Academic institutions, professional societies, research funders, and academic publishers all have important roles to play in the development of a more equitable and sustainable model going forward. There is every reason for optimism: The report is filled with examples of sector initiatives to change academic incentive structures, innovative open-access arrangements, potential alternative publishing platforms, and concrete suggestions for better-supporting peer review. — Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge

https://tinyurl.com/y252kdra

“Alternative Explanations for a Publication Paradox with Gold Open Access”

The discussions mentioned previously on self-citation and APC alleviation could lead, albeit not inevitably, to the disconcerting hypothetical scenario below. Gold OA publishers invested in expediting their journals’ editorial process to gain popularity and submissions. The way the journals operate enhances citations, particularly journal level or publisher level self-citations, which subsequently gain and inflates the journals’ impact factors, thus promoting even more submissions and citations. Any financial constraint on the part of authors imposed by APCs could potentially be alleviated by several mechanisms including discounts for individuals who review manuscripts, which heighten the activities of those that seek financial defrayment in publishing their own papers, thus potentially compromising stringency if not integrity. The attainment of an impact factor by any of these journals would attract a critical mass of authors that would ensure a mutually sustaining if not propagating loop of submissions, reviews and publications.

https://doi.org/10.3897/ese.2025.e160424

“APC Waivers and Ukraine’s Publishing Output in Gold OA Journals: Evidence from Five Commercial Publishers”

This study examines the effect of article processing charge (APC) waivers on the participation of Ukrainian researchers in fully Gold Open Access (Gold OA) journals published by the five largest academic publishers – Elsevier, SAGE, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley – during the period 2019-2024. These publishers were selected because, in response to the full-scale war launched against Ukraine in 2022, all five introduced emergency 100% APC-waiver policies for Ukrainian authors. Using bibliometric data from the Web of Science Core Collection, the study analyses publication trends in Ukrainian-authored articles in fully Gold OA journals of these publishers before and after 2022. The results show a marked post-2022 increase in Ukraine’s Gold OA output, particularly in journals published by Springer Nature and Elsevier. Disciplinary and publisher-specific patterns are evident, with especially strong growth in the medical and applied sciences. The findings underscore the potential of targeted support measures during times of crisis, while also illustrating the inherent limitations of APC-based publishing models in fostering equitable scholarly communication.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.12134

“No One “Owns” That: Metadata, Copyright, and the Problems with [Library] Vendor Agreements”

Based on our analysis, we assert that the vast majority of bibliographic metadata is simply not copyrightable. While there may be “thin” copyrightable material, institutions should release these records under a CC0 Public Domain Dedication to ensure the widest possible distribution to support research, aid in the dissemination of knowledge, and promote innovation. In this paper, we will review our findings, share our analysis, and make recommendations for libraries to openly share their metadata records.

https://tinyurl.com/3wbtszc7

“The Scandal of Academic Publishing”

Much is rotten in academic publishing, but it is easier to hold noses than do anything more fundamental about the stench. The five companies dominating the industry have grown fat on the backs of free academic labour. Why do academics (and so their research funders, their employers and the taxpayer) continue to subsidise the Big Five? Perhaps because one needs, and the other supplies, the publication indicators of academic performance on which rankings and the distribution of resources in higher education are largely based. Many of those with vested interests in academic publishing and higher education share a faith that publication indicators indicate something other than an ability to game, that academic papers will be read rather than merely counted, and that scholarship is mysteriously protected by a peer review system that is often little more than hollow ritual. The incursion of “predatory” publishers – publishers simply selling authors what they want – cheap, instant performance indicators, no questions asked, no need for gaming or peer review – might have been expected to have shaken this faith. Instead, established academic publishers have not hesitated to emulate the predators in their rush to make money, whatever the cost. This paper argues that the cost may be to scholarship.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-025-10042-8

“Scholarly Capital Outflows in ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations]: Modelling the Economics of Academic Publications and Policy Futures through Mixed-Methods Secondary Data Analysis”

This study investigates how ASEAN research investments are disproportionately channelled into Western publishing systems, drawing on dependency theory and resource-dependence theory to explain the structural and policy mechanisms reinforcing this imbalance. Adopting a mixed-methods design based entirely on secondary data, the study addresses three objectives: (i) quantify ASEAN universities’ article processing charge (APC) and subscription outflows to Western publishers (2015–2025); (ii) analyse institutional and national incentive structures shaping publishing behaviour; and (iii) model fiscal, access, and visibility outcomes of three ASEAN-centric policy scenarios. Quantitative analyses employ time-series trend modelling, cross-country expenditure benchmarking, and Monte Carlo simulations for scenario projections. Qualitative content analysis of 64 policy documents from six ASEAN economies identifies the prevalence and intensity of indexing mandates, impact-factor thresholds, and APC support mechanisms. Findings reveal that combined APC and subscription outflows rose from USD 53 million in 2015 to USD 336 million in 2025, with Singapore and Malaysia accounting for 60% of regional expenditure. Stronger policy intensity is statistically associated with higher dissemination costs. Scenario modelling shows that a regional open-access consortium yields the largest net present value savings (USD 411.4 million), a diamond-OA fund achieves the greatest long-term equity gains (68% OA share by 2035), and transformative agreements deliver the fastest short-term visibility improvements (+2.96% FNCI). The study advances a convergent secondary-data integration framework linking quantitative modelling and qualitative policy analysis, extending both the theoretical understanding of academic dependency and the literature on research dissemination policy. Policy implications emphasise coordinated bargaining, regional OA infrastructure investment, and academic reward realignment to strengthen ASEAN knowledge sovereignt

https://tinyurl.com/mphdd9zn

“ARL Comments on NIH ‘Maximizing Research Funds by Limiting Allowable Publishing Costs’”

A growing number of funders, publishers, and libraries have concluded that the article processing charge (APC) is a suboptimal business model for scientific publishing, because it creates barriers to participation, incentivizes unsustainable growth in publication volume, and entrenches the journal article as the sole research output of value. Yet our concern is that imposing caps on APCs will simply shift high costs elsewhere rather than addressing their root causes. Institutions can expect renewed pressure to sign open-access publishing agreements so that their researchers can still publish in prestige journals with APCs that exceed the cap, straining library budgets at a moment when federal investments in institutional research support are being pared back. Efforts to move research assessment away from an emphasis on journal brand are underway, and we recommend that NIH support these efforts by ensuring consideration of the value of nonarticle outputs in the review of funding proposals. We also encourage NIH to expand its definition of allowable publication costs to include preprint review services that offer rigorous expert assessments of research results but may not issue binary accept/reject decisions. In our view, actions like these are more likely to align with existing reform efforts and to avoid damaging second-order effects than imposing isolated caps on publication costs.

https://tinyurl.com/t3y3k7hw

“Shaking up the Scholarly Publishing Market – Why Caps on APCs Could Backfire”

Overall, we find that current publishing practices result in NIH funded research published primarily in journals with fees above even the lowest of the proposed [NIH] caps (Fig.1). . . .

Although our analysis cannot determine whether publishers’ fees are “reasonable,” it makes one conclusion clear: there is a significant gap between what the NIH is proposing as reasonable caps and the substantially higher charges imposed by publishers of journals where NIH-funded authors most frequently publish. This gap is likely even greater than our analysis [NIH APC caps at $2,000, $3,000, or $6,000] indicates, since prior to the zero-embargo of the new policy, some authors included in the data had not paid APCs but instead complied by depositing their articles in PubMedCentral at no cost (green OA). Any of the proposed scenarios would disrupt the current system: publishers would face pressure to adjust either fees or policies, while authors would either scramble to cover shortfalls or seek alternative publishing venues.

https://tinyurl.com/mr3m49t2

“Assessing Open Access Publishing Activities to Inform Open Publishing Services at a Large R1 Institution”

Open Access (OA) publishing is continually reshaping the model of scholarly communication, enabling research outputs to be disseminated more widely and to have greater impact. In response, academic institutions need to assess their publishing landscapes to inform data-driven strategies that support OA adoption. This study mainly investigates publishing patterns at the University of Houston (UH), a large urban institution with “very high research activity” status under the Carnegie Classification. Using bibliographic data from OpenAlex (2020–2024), the authors analyzed OA publishing trends, citation differences between OA and non-OA articles, disciplinary concentrations, top publishers, and associated Article Processing Charges (APCs). Findings reveal key insights into UH authors’ engagement with OA models and inform institutional efforts to enhance open publishing support, develop targeted outreach initiatives, and negotiate better institutional agreements. The study contributes to the broader discourse in scholarly communication by offering a replicable approach for institutional-level OA assessment.

https://doi.org/10.31274/joerhe.20347

“Hurdles to Open Access Publishing Faced by Authors: A Scoping Literature Review from 2004 to 2023”

Over the past two decades, numerous widespread efforts and individual contributions to shift scientific publishing to open access (OA) have faced a number of obstacles. Due to the complexity of knowledge production dimension and knowledge dissemination, the challenges encountered by researchers, publishers and readers differ. While examples of such barriers exist across multiple parties, no attempt has been made to synthesize these for active researchers. Thus, this scoping review explores the barriers documented in the scientific literature that researchers encounter in their pursuit of publishing open access. After screening 1280 relevant sources, 113 papers, published between 2004 and 2023, were included in the review. A total of 82 distinct barriers were identified and grouped into four subclusters: Practical Barriers, Lack of Competency, Sentiment, and Policy and Governance. The largest cluster in terms of barriers assigned was Sentiment, accounting for 51.2% (n = 42) of all barriers identified, suggesting that perceived barriers are the strongest determinants of publishing OA, while the most frequently occurring barrier was ‘high article processing charges’, reported in 88 papers. Furthermore, burdens faced specifically due to the location of the researcher were identified. Understanding and acknowledging these barriers are essential for their effective elimination or mitigation.

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.250257

“Subscribe-to-Open Is Doomed. Here’s Why.”

One of the most popular aphorisms invoked in the ongoing discussion about the future of scholarly communication is an argument that making a global transition to open access (OA) will require no new funding – because, after all, the necessary money is “already in the system” and needs only to be directed away from subscription fees, commercial publishers’ profits, and pay-to-publish charges. . . .

The fundamental problem with the argument that “the money is already in the system” is that it’s built on a false assumption: that money currently “in the system” (i.e., the scholarly communication economy) has been directed into that system for the purpose of supporting scholarly publishing, and will stay there as long as it continues to serve that purpose.

Although these institutional funds do, in practice, support scholarly publishing, that support is a byproduct of their actual purpose — which is to secure access to content for the university community.

The problem is that when an institution is no longer required to pay for access to content, the money it formerly used for that purpose is now available to meet other needs – and all colleges and universities have far more needs to meet than they have resources available.

https://tinyurl.com/23mzakch

Ithaka S+R: The Current State of Academic E-Book Business Models: Access Strategies and Budgeting Realities

Here we highlight the most striking key findings from our research:

There are enormous disconnects between the library and publisher communities on academic monograph publishing. While the two have come together on a variety of important open access initiatives, beyond this there are very different conceptualizations of a shared reality. For example, while university presses and other academic book publishers are experiencing an enormous squeeze in the transition to digital production and distribution, libraries are concerned that digital distribution is resulting in acquisition models that are unsustainable or unreliable to manage.

Many libraries procure e-book content through a mix of acquisition methods that meet their local demands for content, budgeting and staffing needs. Faculty and researcher demand remains paramount for institutions, and libraries remain committed to ensuring both perpetual access and preservation.

The majority of librarian interviewees believe that evidence-based acquisition models provide an especially efficient way to allocate money. Several libraries reported that they have moved away from demand-driven acquisition models due to the significant maintenance required for libraries to engage with these programs. Traditional item selection as facilitated by subject liaisons, however, still accounts for a significant volume of monographic acquisitions at some institutions.

Some libraries identified that a major challenge to acquiring e-monographs was the lack of experienced staff who understand how to navigate the complexities of acquisitions across publishers and aggregators. Standardization across publisher contracts and licenses would help streamline the acquisitions processes and reduce the amount of staff capacity required to facilitate acquisitions. A few librarians said that since e-books are being licensed so differently and under so many different models to present, they have defaulted to print. Libraries have not invested in talent development for monograph strategy to the same extent they have for journals under the banner of scholarly communication.

Publishers and librarians see value in open monographs initiatives. Several publishers spoke about the importance of these initiatives, including Direct to Open, Fund to Mission, Opening the Future, Path to Open, and University Press Library Open, although at present they have not yet been able to scale to cover all academic book production. Librarians see real promise in these models to increase access to open scholarship, support small and university presses, acquire diverse content, open content to broader readership, and promote responsible financial models.

Moving towards more open content is a strategic priority for some institutions. While libraries generally indicate that higher portions of their budgets are being spent on purchased content at present, several participate in one or more flip to open programs. As it remains difficult to acquire and to ascertain quality of open monographs outside of these programs, however, institutions are not always able to fulfil this strategic goal in practice.

Consortia are viewed as increasingly critical by publishers in equalizing opportunities for readership and publication. Several publishers mentioned the importance of working with consortia, especially those that represent a range of institutions including community colleges, to ensure broad access to publications. Publishers are also pursuing closer collaborations with library consortia to implement read and publish-style agreements for monographs.

Across our interviews, perspectives were mixed on whether authors place value on their e-monographs being openly available. While a number of interviewees say that increasing numbers of authors are prioritizing publishing open access and want to reduce barriers to readership, particularly to researchers located in other parts of the world, author opinions on open access are often field- or discipline-specific. Some believe that open access content is lower in quality.

Introducing new models and advocating for adoption requires significant time investment on the part of publishers. Publishers reported that new business models require concerted and cyclical efforts to bring awareness and adoption to the library market. In addition, balancing financially sustainable operations while making e-books available to a wide range of libraries with variable staffing and budgetary configurations is difficult.

New business models introduce new challenges—both pragmatic and ideological—for publishers and libraries. Over the course of this research, Clarivate announced that it was moving away from transactional sales and towards a bundled subscription model for e-book sales. It is clear that the business models for how books will be distributed going forward will have an enormous effect on the sustainability of scholarly publishers and their ability to continue producing monographs of the type that this report examines.

Interviewees believe that generative AI will likely have a large, but as of yet unknown, impact on electronic monographs in the future. While interviewees did not speculate on what this impact would look like, there was a sense that it would be transformative and affect how readers engage with long-form electronic content.

https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.323373

“Quality of Scientific Papers Questioned as Academics ‘Overwhelmed’ by the Millions Published”

Analysis for the Guardian by Gordon Rogers, the lead data scientist at Clarivate, an analytics company, shows that the number of research studies indexed on the firm’s Web of Science database rose by 48%, from 1.71m to 2.53m, between 2015 and 2024. Tot up all the other kinds of scientific articles and the total reaches 3.26m.

In a landmark paper last year, Dr Mark Hanson at the University of Exeter described how scientists were “increasingly overwhelmed” by the volume of articles being published. . . .

According to a recent analysis, between 2015 and 2018, researchers globally paid more than $1bn in open access fees to the big five academic publishers, Elsevier, Sage, Springer Nature, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley.

https://tinyurl.com/cf2nc9vc

“Inequity, Precarity, and Disparity: Exploring Systemic and Institutional Barriers in Open Access Publishing”

Despite increasing advocacy for open access (OA), its uptake in some disciplines has remained low. Existing studies have linked the low uptake of OA in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) to disciplinary norms, limited funding for article processing charges (APCs), and researchers’ preferences. However, there is a growing concern about inequity in the scholarly communication landscape, as OA publishing has remained unaffordable to many researchers. This study investigates systemic and institutional barriers to OA publishing in Canada, as well as strategies for improving the uptake of and equity in OA publishing. Using semi-structured interviews, qualitative data was collected from 20 professors from the HSS disciplines of research-intensive universities in the country. Data was analyzed using the NVivo software, following the reflexive thematic analysis approach. Findings revealed five systemic and institutional barriers to OA publishing: (1) unaffordable APCs; (2) precarious career stage and tenure requirements; (3) unequal privileges; (4) gender; and (5) conflicting and unsupportive institutional OA policies. We conclude that there needs to be a concerted effort in promoting and funding viable and sustainable OA models, which removes the financial burden of OA publishing from researchers. There is also an increasing need to promote OA culture within academia and provide institutional support for OA publishing. Notably, the model of academic scholarship that places prominence on journal metrics for tenure and promotion needs to be reformed. Some recommendations for reducing systemic and institutional barriers to OA publishing are provided.

https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006251353385

“NIH to Crack Down on Excessive Publisher Fees for Publicly Funded Research”

The current landscape of scholarly publishing presents growing challenges. Some major publishers charge as much as $13,000 per article for immediate open access, while also collecting substantial subscription fees from government agencies. For example, one publishing group reportedly receives more than $2 million annually in subscription fees from NIH, in addition to tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges (APCs). These costs ultimately burden taxpayers who have already funded the underlying research.

To address this imbalance, NIH will introduce a cap on allowable publication costs starting in Fiscal Year (FY) 2026, ensuring that publication fees remain reasonable across the research ecosystem. The policy aims to curb excessive APCs and ensure the broad dissemination of research findings without unnecessary financial barriers.

https://tinyurl.com/4uh6v67m