German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) Releases Discussion Paper on the Direct Funding and Evaluation of Scientific Journals

From the News Release

Access to scientific knowledge is essential for science, as well as for tackling societal challenges. However, the limitation of this access by paywalls comes at a cost to public finances and also, increasingly, to scientific quality. In light of this situation, the authors of a discussion paper published today by the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina propose a new funding principle for scientific journals that would make these publications freely available to everyone. Thus, a key aspect is for the funding of journals to follow the same procedure as publicly funded research. This would involve an application process to run a journal as well as regular evaluation. The aim is to guarantee lasting quality, transparency, and scientific relevance while also cutting costs.

According to the authors, the publication of scientific journals is currently dominated by a handful of profit-oriented publishers. Income is derived from subscription contracts with libraries or by charging fees to publish articles, known as article processing charges (APCs). As funding for science and academic libraries is a public task, publishers’ profits ultimately come from public finances. Monopoly structures lacking sufficient market controls have arisen, which have made scientific publication much more expensive without adding scientific value. In order to correct this trend, according to the authors, scientific publication should be funded and monitored in the same way as research itself. Accordingly, they recommend establishing what is known as a diamond open access model, which ensures free access for both authors and readers. The running and the funding of journals that follow this model remain in the hands of expert scientific organisations or institutions that receive a budget for the purpose. This budget allows them to contract service providers in competitive procedures to fulfil certain publication components.

Running a journal under the proposed funding system would be based on an application submitted by a scientific society, an academy, or a public institution with a scientific or infrastructural mission. The authors of the paper argue that the evaluation of such applications should follow the criteria established by those research or funding organisations that also organise the evaluation of research funding. For the next stage in implementing the proposed funding process, the discussion paper specifically recommends involving representatives from scientific societies that publish scientific journals, in order to better estimate the required budget and how to shape the application procedure. A national pilot project should be launched to test the new procedure. The experts also suggest initiating an international working group to establish supranational co-financing.

Direct to Full Text News Release

Direct to Full Text Discussion Paper: A New Concept for the Direct Funding and Evaluation of Scientific Journals (2025)
56 pages; PDF

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Funding, Journal Articles, Libraries, News, Open Access