What Does the Anti-Science Trend Mean for Scholarly Publishing

Dear Colleagues,

Summary Statement: A number of issues threaten to bring major changes to the landscape of science communication. These include a distrust of expert opinion, the growth of anti-science, shrinking funds for public education, a continued increase in research that is privately funded, and rising concern that some proportion of published material is of low quality or even false. This Special Issue invites both full articles on any related topics and shorter reports from around the world on science communication.

Background

Traditional scholarly publishing (in which the author surrenders copyright, and the publisher distributes the material for free) was disrupted by the Open Access (OA) movement that gained momentum at the millennium. While this has indeed made academic material more available, it has also resulted in a significant change in the way that such publications are funded. After review, authors now pay (sometimes a quite significant sum) to their publisher. In short, while publications were once fully funded by libraries, they are now frequently underwritten by research grants, which are in turn often supported by the taxpayer.

The Problem

The sustainability of this situation is now being challenged by a series of social changes, which have different origins but frequently coalesce in their impacts. The first change is populism, which is typically manifested in political movements that are anti-elites. It is increasingly visible in the Americas, in Europe, and in Asia. This is in turn often displayed in a rejection of expert opinion: a particularly salient example is the widespread response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now a virulent anti-vaccine movement. Institutionally, we also see widespread efforts to shrink government agencies, their regulatory functions, and their expenditures.

The Result

These social pressures seem likely to pose a challenge to OA. Whereas researchers with limited budgets could in the past pass the costs of publication on to a traditional publisher, they may now be mandated to go OA and to cover APCs themselves; this may result in fewer submissions. Some research sectors may be especially vulnerable: in the US, federal grant-making agencies are confronting steep budget cuts, and researchers on controversial topics, such as climate change, may be hard pressed to continue.

This Special Issue

We are soliciting reports from our global readership so that we can identify the threats to research and scholarly publishing in different nations.

Prof. Dr. Andrew Kirby
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Publications is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• scholarly publishing
• science communication
• publish policy