Report Out Now: Assessing the Impact of the Covid Pandemic on the Scholarly Publishing Industry

MDPI Scilit compiled a report to assess the impact of Covid-19 on the scholarly publishing industry in 2020.

The scholarly publications market continued to expand in 2020, in terms of the number of published papers, with little impact from the pandemic. The number of scholarly publications increased by 5%, similar to previous year. However, the growth rate of open access publishing slowed down in 2020, in comparison with articles published behind paywalls, in subscription-based journals.

This being in contrast to the fact that almost half of the research papers relevant to Covid-19 were published in open access format in 2020, against an overall share of open access publications of just over a third in 2020.

The full report can be read here.

Furthermore, the report discusses the trajectory of the publication market in various countries, and looks at how the top 100 scholarly publishers gained market share in 2020. The current year may be conclusive as to whether these are long-term trends, or short-term effects partly caused by the pandemic.