Ecography's flip to a pay‐to‐publish model - Araújo - - Ecography - Wiley Online Library

"The Nordic Society Oikos (NSO) has decided to flip Ecography from a pay‐to‐read model to a pay‐to‐publish model. All papers published after the flip, in January 2020, will become open access immediately. As a bonus, all published papers since 1997 will be also free to read.

According to NSO, the main reason for the flip is that the subscription income of Ecography is insufficient to cover the costs of publication. NSO has decided that, given the current changes in the publication landscape, the best strategy to guarantee the future of Ecography is to change its funding model.

As senior editors of Ecography (i.e. Editor‐in‐Chief and Deputy‐Editors‐in‐Chief), we witness these changes with mixed feelings. On the one hand we acknowledge that there is little justification for limiting readers’ access to the scientific literature under a pay‐to‐read model. Most of the research published by journals is funded by taxpayers’ money and the general public should have the right to access it freely from any Internet terminal.

In an information‐driven society, it is also disingenuous to allow fake news to roam freely on the Internet, while keeping the highest‐standard information ever created by humankind behind paywalls. A better world will no doubt emerge from open science.

On the other hand, we share with many others the concern that a pay‐to‐publish system will increase inequality among authors....

The frequent flyer's programmes of airline companies inspires the system we propose. Essentially, reviewers of manuscripts should obtain, for each review they perform for Ecography, a voucher that is worth a specified discount on the billed open access fees of their next paper in Ecography, valid for a specified time period. Within the same time window, editors will obtain vouchers worth a specified discount for every year of service.

We also propose that discounts can be granted for those that do not have institutional support or other means of paying Open Access fees. An author's ability to pay should not influence any aspect of the review process, including the decision on whether or not the manuscript is accepted for publication...."