Financial Models for Scholarly Publishing

Dear Colleagues,

The current scholarly publishing model is in a transition period where different initiatives are on the table along with questions about their capacity to coexist and to find sustainable models. What seems clear is that the age of the subscription model is ending, and open access will be the preferred option. However, open access is provided in a number of different ways, not all of which are accepted by researchers and institutions. In the last decade, we have seen the rise of the hybrid model bringing extra income to publishers sustaining subscription models.

Now, we are seeing universities and research institutions sign transitional agreements moving their subscription budgets to the publish-and-read deals, which aim to openly publish their future scientific publication without losing access to previous closed contents. This change tries to be at least cost neutral. Research funders are also moving towards open access, constantly promoting stronger policies that require grantees to avoid closed venues. This is the case of the members of Coalition S, which has set a plan which aims to have real open access in 2021. However, this plan has received much criticism, especially from outside Europe, because it can be seen as a way to reinforce the status quo of big publishers by maintaining their oligopoly through a system of publication fees. That concern is shared by publishing initiatives that propose other models to make open access sustainable (such as institutional memberships.) But the question here is this: how many memberships can an institution afford?

While discussing the sustainability of various models designed to keep journals in place, we are seeing new challenges in the scholarly publishing context like the rise of preprint servers or the creation of publishing platforms providing open peer review. These initiatives challenge the current publishing and evaluation systems and also propose new business models to be discussed in the near future.

In this Special Issue, we would like to have an open discussion of all these models that are currently on the table, and to have new ideas and proposals which will shape the future of the scholarly communication. Therefore, we welcome contributions that address the following:

• Future sustainable scenarios for open access
• Models for journals, books and any kind of publication
• Open access solutions based on memberships programs
• Shifting costs in transitional agreements
• Investment models from funders to sustain scholarly publishing
• Institutional initiatives to support their journals
• Discussions about the cost of a publication
• Transparent practices on the cost of publishing

Dr. Ignasi Labastida
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.

• open access journals
• open access books
• sustainable open access models
• article processing charges
• transparent publishing costs
• share of costs