Open Access perpetuates differences between higher‐ and lower‐income countries - Santidrián Tomillo - 2022 - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment - Wiley Online Library

"Unfortunately, scientists who lack adequate funding, especially those based in lower-income countries, have been and continue to be largely restricted from OA publishing (Mekonnen et al. 2021). As a result, the OA movement has inadvertently maintained historical inequities. Whereas authors from wealthier countries often benefit from governmental resources, those in less wealthy countries typically lack such access; moreover, they are comparatively underpaid. Consequently, authors in lower-income nations often struggle to pay publication fees (Asubiaro 2019; Overland et al. 2021; Valenzuela-Toro and Viglino 2021). In addition, because most publishers stipulate that fees be paid in US dollars, euros, or British pounds, authors from countries that use other currencies can be affected by unfavorable exchange rates. If authors from lower-income countries are unable to pay for OA, then no one (without a subscription) can access their published work – and by hindering the dissemination of research, these journals are not truly OA (Sala 2022). Some but not all OA and hybrid journals offer fee waivers to authors from countries classified by the World Bank as low income and lower middle income (for which fees are often waived entirely or partially, respectively). Nonetheless, residual costs may still be beyond the means of scientists from lower-income countries (Mekonnen et al. 2021). As a consequence, scientists based in parts of the world where external funding is limited are becoming less professionally competitive over time as the proportion of journals that offer OA continues to grow. In Brazil, for instance, despite having the highest level of investment in scientific research (Ciocca and Delgado 2017) and output among countries in Latin America, a US$2000 OA fee to publish an article is equivalent to either the average pre-tax monthly salary of a tenure-track professor or roughly one-fourth of a regular personal research grant (https://bit.ly/3tm61eT). Moreover, many Brazilian grants prohibit researchers from using grant funds to pay for OA publication. As such, OA journals are contributing to the widening gap between researchers from low- and high-income countries, restricting to an even greater degree the opportunities for and visibility of scientists from the Global South. Notably, most ecological studies are conducted in these countries, frequently by ecologists that come from the Global North (Trisos et al. 2021). An academic evaluation system that values not only output quantity but also scientific quality and relevance would also help to “level the playing field” between scientists from less wealthy and more wealthy countries. If the OA movement had – from the beginning – included the perspective of scientists from lower-income countries, such inequity might have been anticipated and avoided. As it stands at present, to narrow the gap between regions, OA publishing fees must be evaluated more fairly. For example, fees could be waived for authors who lack grant money, or assessed based on the percentage of gross domestic product invested in research and development in the author’s country. Moreover, there can be large disparities in income among countries within each income level (high, middle, or low), so grouping them in such a way is disadvantageous for those toward the bottom of each category. Because diversity increases productivity and innovation (Freeman and Huang 2014) and scientific impact (AlShebli et al. 2018), the global scientific community should strive toward guaranteeing equal opportunities for all scientists regardless of geographic location. Recent years have seen the emergence of a new movement with the objective of decolonizing science, and ecology in parti