The Drain of Scientific Publishing

2025/11/06 by Fernanda Beigel, Beigel, Fernanda, Dan Brockington +22 · 42 voices · 2 citations
Decision Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Health Professions · #Academic Publishing and Open Access #Publishing and Scholarly Communication #Medical Research and Practices

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.04820

Abstract

The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science. We need the most powerful members of the research community, funders, governments and Universities, to lead the drive to re-communalise publishing to serve science not the market.

Citations

• Estimating global article processing charges paid to six publishers for open access between 2019 and 2023
• Identifying Fabricated Networks within Authorship-for-Sale Enterprises
• The oligopoly’s shift to open access: How the big five academic publishers profit from article processing charges
• The strain on scientific publishing
• The oligopoly of academic publishers persists in exclusive database

Cited by

• The Issue with Special Issues: when Guest Editors Publish in Support of Self
• Diamond is the new Green—Why Green Open Access is not a sustainable long-term model for scientific publishing

Discussions

• We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing: a 🧵 1/n Drain: arxiv.org/a [bsky, 645 points, 8 comments]
• What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma. It's *scientific publishing*. We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing. Paper: arxiv.org/ab [bsky, 335 points, 8 comments]
• What is the most profitable industry in the world? Not oil, not IT, not pharma. It's scientific publishing. [lemmy, 208 points, 15 comments]
• Profits from scientific publishing are eye-watering, costing us billions. In ‘The Drain of Scientific Publishing’ (arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820), (building on ‘The Strain of Scientific Publishing’ doi.org [bsky, 66 points, 3 comments]
• Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 🎤 If you’ve read this far and still need convincing, please check out our preprint arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 and this infographic: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... 10/10 [bsky, 64 points, 4 comments]
• Hier zur Veranschaulichung ein paar Zahlen, wie viel Profit die großen Verlage machen. Wir reden von @elsevierconnect.bsky.social, @springernature.com, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, and @sagepub.com Prepri [bsky, 45 points, 2 comments]
• Excellent new paper. https:// arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 "The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science; we need the most powerful memb [mastodon, 40 points, 1 comments]
• New preprint on the drain that for-profit publishers place on the scientific ecosystem. We also point out that, though it's often presented as a global problem, it's actually a Global North problem: t [bsky, 37 points, 2 comments]
• “We propose that scholarly publishing needs to be re-communalized. Universities, libraries, funders ... need to build a system that is community-led and managed, and which works to further research... [bsky, 31 points, 1 comments]
• 📣 Our friends at the #ScholCommLab have published a preprint, "The Drain of #ScientificPublishing", and are calling for #research communities, funders, governments, and #universities to "re-communali [bsky, 26 points, 1 comments]
• Source: arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04820 [bsky, 23 points, 0 comments]
• 🧪 I ran into this in another list. The title and the abstract of this paper is quite provocative. Table 1 with the profits of the 6 major sci publishing companies is something. arxiv.org/abs/2511.048 [bsky, 18 points, 0 comments]
• Apparently, there is still funding left in academia even though Springer Nature made $489 million profits off of it in 2024. And now they are telling researchers what great news that is. Let me fix th [bsky, 17 points, 0 comments]
• The Drain of Scientific Publishing arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04820 [bsky, 16 points, 0 comments]
• The Drain of Scientific Publishing The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science. We need the most powerful members of the research c [bsky, 8 points, 1 comments]
• Poniendo los puntos sobre las íes 👏 Beigel, F., Brockington, D., Crosetto, P., Derrick, G., Fyfe, A., Barreiro, P. G., Hanson, M. A., Haustein, S., Larivière, V., Noe, C., Pinfield, S., & Wilsdon, J [bsky, 7 points, 0 comments]
• The figures in this article are pretty astonishing - or horrifying..? When will the scholarly comms community say 'enough is enough'? We already have the expertise, infrastructure, finances, logisti [bsky, 6 points, 1 comments]
• The Drain of Scientific Publishing arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 [bsky, 6 points, 0 comments]
• "The domination of scientific publishing...by major commercial publishers is harmful to science. We need the most powerful members of the research community, funders, governments & Universities, to le [bsky, 5 points, 1 comments]
• "The domination of scientific publishing in the Global North by major commercial publishers is harmful to science..." arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04820 #science #peerreview #scientificmethod #scientificpublish [bsky, 5 points, 0 comments]
• "Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the adv [bsky, 5 points, 0 comments]
• New Preprint: The Drain of Scientific #Publishing arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 #publishers #oa #scholcomm #science [bsky, 4 points, 0 comments]
• 📚 The Drain of Scientific Publishing arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 [bsky, 3 points, 0 comments]
• Ganske sykt å se på profittmarginen til selskapene. Kanskje Norge bør fase ut oljen og heller kjøpe Elsevier 😂 Bakgrunn: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 [bsky, 3 points, 1 comments]
• @paolocrosetto.bsky.social has been a part of the conversation since the early days of the Unjournal. We appreciate his work exposing predatory journals and exploitive publishing practices. arxiv.org/ [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
• "The domination of scientific publishing by major commercial publishers is harmful to science. We need the most powerful members of the research community, funders, governments and Universities, to le [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
• "We need the most powerful members of the research community, funders, governments and Universities, to lead the drive to re-communalise publishing to serve science not the market." - The Drain of Sci [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
• mdpi is both a "drain" (2025) arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 and a "strain" (2024) on academic research: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
• Table from this article here: arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04820 This is one of the problems that I feel so helpless about. Large commercial publishers get very high profit margins (over 30%). Meanwhile, HE ins [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
• Preprint 2: The Drain of Scientific Publishing arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 [bsky, 2 points, 1 comments]
• The Drain of Scientific Publishing https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
• "The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized." arxiv [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
• 🤔How does the domination of scientific publishing affect science? A paper co-authored by the #ICREAResercher @danbrockington.bsky.social analyzes this Global North trend. 🔗 arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04820 [bsky, 2 points, 0 comments]
• Uusi preprint vanhasta aiheesta: Suurten tiedejulkaisijoiden ylivallasta ja tieteen huonoista kannustimista. Toimia tarvitaan, etenkin tiedeyhteisöltä: "The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• "The Drain of Scientific Publishing" I don't often post preprints as I'd rather wait for the peer reviewed version to appear, but I do make exceptions - and this is one of them. I really hope that thi [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• The Drain of Scientific Publishing-- arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• ‪"Platforms such as SciELO, Redalyc, Latindex or AJOL offer quality, community-governed alternatives ... Yet, these regional models remain undervalued in evaluation systems shaped by Northern prioriti [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]
• 📣 Our friends at the # ScholCommLab have published a preprint, "The Drain of # ScientificPublishing ", and are calling for # research communities, funders, governments, and # universities to "re-comm [mastodon, 1 points, 0 comments]
• The Drain of Scientific Publishing [hn, 1 points, 0 comments]
• "In this article, we show that the relationships that have developed between researchers, their funders and commercial publishers are draining the research system, despite (sometimes even, due to) rec [mastodon, 0 points, 0 comments]
• arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]
• 📝 Leseempfehlung: "The Open Access movement has brought funders back to the table. They are not yet wielding their influence as much as they could, but they need to. Commercial publishers have manage [mastodon, 0 points, 0 comments]

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