2026/06/03 by Csaba Szabo · 1 voice
Decision Sciences · Health Professions · #Academic Publishing and Open Access #scientometrics and bibliometrics research #Medical Research and Practices
paper · doi:10.1098/rsos.252165
Abstract The Stockholm Declaration calls for a moral reformation of scientific publishing—replacing commercial publishers with scholar-led journals, rewarding quality over quantity and instituting independent oversight. While noble in spirit, it fundamentally misdiagnoses the disease. The crisis of science stems not from paper mills or profit motives but from systemic incentives that reward volume, novelty and prestige over validity and reliability. Non-profit ownership will not neutralize the prestige economy, sleuth-led policing cannot scale, and ‘integrity registries’ would merely replace metrics with surveillance. True reform requires rebuilding the publishing infrastructure as a public utility: publicly funded, free to publish and read, and stripped of hierarchy and financial incentives.