Academics ‘should not sign over research copyright to publishers’ | THE News

"Academics should resist signing over the copyright of their research to a “profit-oriented” academic publisher if they can secure a licence to publish themselves, a report recommends, while university leaders must simultaneously seek ways to ensure that copyright remains with the author.

According to the report, Untangling Academic Publishing: A History of the Relationship between Commercial Interests, Academic Prestige and the Circulation of Knowledge, reforms of scholarly publishing have given “undue weight to commercial concerns” in recent years. Additionally, the “prestige economy”, in which academics compete for the kudos of having their work published by journals with high impact factors or by high-status presses, has stymied the move towards open access and “free sharing of knowledge”, it argues...."