Nataliia KaliuzhnaRecommendations for Scholarly Publishers and Journal Editors to Mitigate Barriers to Open Access Publishing for Researchers with Weak Institutional Ties
Academic careers are not always linear or predictable. The ideal path, which begins with earning a PhD, followed by a postdoc, and then a smooth transition into a professorship to pursue one’s research interests, is more the exception than the rule. Life circumstances often disrupt academic trajectories. Researchers may experience career brackets due to prolonged parental leave, caring responsibilities, or relocation, including situations where they are forced to move as refugees or displaced scholars. Yet, being not affiliated with a strong institution does not mean they stop conducting and disseminating their research through scholarly journals.
On the other hand, becoming an independent researcher or scholar can be a well-considered choice for some academics, too. Retired researchers may wish to continue their endeavour, while others might find fulfillment as citizen scientists, independent consultants, or researchers contributing to civil society organizations and non-profit institutions.
Regardless of the reasons, it is a fact that rigorous, ethical, and timely research is being conducted outside the walls of traditional universities and research institutions – and it deserves opportunities for dissemination. Yet affiliation-specific barriers often stand in the way.
Affiliation specific barriers to OA publishing for researchers with weak institutional ties
Researchers with weak institutional ties face a range of affiliation-specific barriers, as revealed by the IDAHO project study, conducted by TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology and funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR).
Weakly affiliated researchers/researchers with weak institutional ties – an umbrella term that encompasses a diverse group of individuals who are not affiliated with universities or research institutions, or who choose not to use an affiliation when publishing research articles. This group may include retired researchers, refugee researchers, citizen scientists, researchers conducting studies for civil societies or non-profit organizations, self-employed consultants, writers, as well as independent researchers or scholars who do not identify with the aforementioned categories.
One such barrier occurs when publishers rely on preregistered affiliation databases in their submission systems, which does not allow entering a custom affiliations. For many, this simple restriction can block them from submitting their paper altogether. Another barrier is financial. Independent researchers often cannot access funding, and a lot of citizen science projects receive grants, making article processing charges (APC) a significant obstacle. While APC waivers offered by major publishers might seem like a solution, in practice, researchers with weak institutional ties are frequently excluded from this type of support. These waiver policies are usually tied to a country’s economic status, which means that an independent researcher from Germany, for example, would not be eligible to apply. With the growing number of diamond open access journals, publishing in those would be a viable solution.
Reflecting on those barriers, a set of recommendations for academic publishers and journal editors to mitigate barriers to OA publishing for researchers with weak institutional ties has been developed.
Recommendations for academic publishers and journal editors to mitigate barriers to OA publishing for researchers with weak institutional ties
Recommendation 1. Remove or decrease financial burdens for authors
Publishers and journals should work to remove publishing fees by expanding diamond open access models. Alternatively, they could introduce a tiered or sliding-scale APCs or provide clear, automatic waiver policies. In particular, publishers should ensure that independent researchers have access to fee waivers, regardless of their country of residence
Recommendation 2. Accept and recognize diverse affiliation types
Journals should recognize and accept diverse affiliation types by allowing “independent researcher” and similar options in submission systems.
Recommendation 3. Enhance Multilingual Author Support Systems
Journals should enhance support for authors by offering multilingual submission platforms and professional language editing, making it easier for non-native English speakers to publish. They should also accommodate diverse research outputs, including Indigenous knowledge, oral histories, bilingual texts, and other non-traditional formats.
Recommendation 4. Strengthen Trust, Quality, and Editorial Standards
Journals should train editorial teams to recognize and avoid biases based on institution, geography, language, ensuring independent and lesser-known researchers are evaluated fairly. They should also promote robust peer review, increase transparency by publishing reviewer reports.
Recommendation 5. Streamline and Simplify Submission Workflows
Journals should simplify submission workflows by providing low-bandwidth and mobile-friendly platforms, as well as offline submission options to accommodate researchers with limited internet access. They should also offer author-friendly measures, such as emergency submissions via email, to reduce location-related barriers.
Please find the full recommendations here.
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IDAHO
Leiden Madtrics
Mark Carrigan
Nataliia Kaliuzhna
petersuber
Dr Jon Rainford