Why we should stop publishing in open-access journals with article processing charges | AESOP Young Academics

"Within this framework, a question emerges: should we publish in these journals? My opinion is that we should not do it at all (for a similar viewpoint, see Eric Verdeil’s opinion). It is not only an issue of individual ethics, but of public ethics, which concerns the whole academic system. As a matter of fact, feeding the APC journal system has three serious negative consequences.

1. It sets a barrier to access for those without research funds. This system creates a barrier for researchers who do not have access to substantial research funds (such as young or precarious researchers or scholars from not-so-affluent universities). This increases the hierarchical segmentation of the academic world even further.
2. It risks not adequately guaranteeing the quality control of the scientific publications. “Predatory journals” have repeatedly been suspected of lowering the review process standards. Can the same suspect apply also to many non-predatory APC journals? My answer is affirmative. All APC journals make money and survive thanks to the articles sent to them. The very mechanism of requiring a fee from authors for publishing their article could push every APC journal to lower qualitative standards in order to publish as much as possible. The fact that, in many cases, the publication time of APC journals is very short (three or four weeks maximum, from sending the paper to its publication) seem to support these suspicions.
3. It makes serious research work impossible. Many APC journals publish a significant number of articles. The case of Sustainability is blatant. During 2020, Sustainability published around 10,500 articles. For a researcher working on questions of sustainable cities, how is it possible to stay on top of everything that is published in this journal, so as to be aware of recent research developments in his/her field? Publishing a reasonable number of carefully selected articles is an essential task of scientific journals, which allows robust research work to be possible. In this regard, serious scientific journals are an essential component of the academic world: through their rigorous filter, they make the development of cumulative knowledge and robust research possible, as well as the flourishing of scientific debates. The publication of an exaggerated number of articles with almost no filter is, therefore, extremely detrimental to everybody’s research...."