‘It Feels Like Things Are Breaking Open’: High Publishing Charges Spur Neuroscientists to Start Own Journal

"The editors of a prominent neuroscience journal are sending a clear message to their publisher — and, they hope, to the broader academic-publishing community — by resigning en masse to begin a new journal in protest of what they say are “unethical and unsustainable” publishing fees.

More than 40 handling editors, associate editors, senior editors, and editors in chief for NeuroImage and its companion journal NeuroImage: Reports, which are published by Elsevier, on Monday announced they were leaving their positions to assume similar roles at the newly formed Imaging Neuroscience, which will be published by the nonprofit MIT Press. They plan for the new journal to eclipse NeuroImage in standing, saying the fact that the entire editorial staff is making the shift will ensure the new journal’s quality.

The high-profile move is the latest chapter in the long-unfolding battle over who pays and who benefits in the academic-publishing world. The departure from a well-regarded journal, and the plan to mount direct competition to it, also highlight the complex ecosystem that surrounds journals’ prestige and impact — and the interplay of a publisher’s reach and scale with the academic bona fides of the scholars who run a title...."