To me the most jarring problem with this part of the OMB proposal is that is inconsistent with the current requirements of the funding agencies to upload all published papers in a public database where anyone around the world can read them for free. And the PIs are also required to convert the pdfs to the ADA-compliant form, so all disabled people in the world can access these papers for free. What OMB should have done is to instruct funding agencies to lift these requirements, abolish the database, and drop open-source/open-access mandates. The PIs should be free to pay publication costs if they wish to put their papers in open-access. Or publish in the journals without publication fees. Whatever the PIs find to be most suitable for their work.
Funds should indeed be available for publication as this is the final goal of research. However many scientific journals are predatory - costs being sometimes close to $4k dollars. I have been wondering if this rule will change this landscape, making society journal more attractive (some give free publication for the first 30 pages a year). I am wondering if there could be a win-win situation with limiting funds. For instance, setting a max allowed per paper (e.g. $1500).
Thanks, Luana. It seems that both you, and Edward (commented a few min. ago), are optimists… and I am a pessimist. It would be nice if both of you were right.. and these regulations would result in downward pressure on publication fees. (I regularly pay $4000 for open access in the best journal(s) in my field.) But (as the pessimist I am), if the OMB folks really wanted to keep costs down AND honor the purpose of research, they would have stipulated a maximum allowable fee for open access, and not deem the fee “unallowable”.
Yes. Limiting fees is sensible. So is turning a system like PubMed into a journal support system. Allow legitimate parties to start journals and operate them at minimal fee structure.
But bedrock of Republican ideology is limited government, and "free market" idealism that can only operate this way. Yes, it's largely wrong, often destructive and blinkered. It was this ideology that caused the first Trump administration's industrious government size cutters to get rid of the pandemic response team at CDC on the grounds it had been almost 20 years since it was needed, which was followed by Covid-19. Rather than call them back, Fauci was appointed to do it---and Fauci had no specific domain knowledge.
On the flip side, many of these idealists are also well versed practitioners of "legal theft". So they know exactly wtf is really going on at the big publishers.
Seems like they might be trying to get institutions to cover open-access fees, like many institutions already do. But it is a big burden on library budgets.
Would an easy fix/solution be to still require government funded articles to be uploaded to PubMed Central? As a medical librarian I use PubMed everyday.
Thank you for your question, David. I think we scientists are a little caual in our use of two terms -“publication”, and “publicize” - but they have distinct meanings. “Publication” refers to submitting a manuscript for peer review and ultimate (via printing/posting) inclusion in an issue of a recognized journal. Along with that goes linking the article to public databases so that others (mostly scientists but others too) can access readily. “Publicizing” a research result is more like advertising to journalists or directly to the public. Sometimes, a press office at a universitiy does that… but there are many results competing for their attention and only a few get “publicized”. The former is controlled by large by publishing companies (and costs the investigators money).. Nature, Science, Wiley… That is where the high fees come in. Some investigators have no access to funds other than their grants… and so want to have the freedom to use them for publication costs. The latter is done by individuals, univerisities… and as you suggest, sometimes by scientific societies. But the former (publication) is the most essential so that all reviewed results are entered into the official historical record and can be searched and consulted by other scientists formulating new theories and new experiments.
This is a great answer. I unwittingly assumed that most people know this, and everyone who is a STEM professional does, of course. But that leaves out a massive fraction of the people who read Heterodox STEM, and people who pay in one way or another for STEM R&D.
I agree that publications costs should be included as part of the budget for any research grant. However, the argument for such costs being covered applies to ALL scientists...not just those with the luxury of federal grant funding. Why should a scientist forced to do their work without federal funds also have to then pay to publish their work out of pocket while those feeding off the federal trough have the publication costs covered by taxpayers? This is manifestly unjust. There is a simple solution. REQUIRE universities to use some of their outrageous overhead funding to pay for ALL publications by their faculty...whether tenure track or not, whether grant funded or not, as a condition of receiving overhead funds. If that is not forthcoming, deduct the cost of publication from the PI's salary line in the grant. Either way, problem solved.
The cost to publish should drop, drastically. It is only as high as it is currently for historical reasons, because certain figures cornered the market, created a monopoly, and jacked up the costs sky high.
It was not always like this. It is only the result of corruption.
So the first thing that should be done is roll costs back immensely. It should NOT cost anywhere near as much to publish since the technology has made it cheaper to publish, not more expensive.
After the prices have been properly adjusted, then we can figure out who pays what. But the fundamental problem is that we are still caught in this current nightmare that was created in the last few decades by some prominent influential individuals.
That is very true...and should be addressed...but does not speak to the point. The complaint being raised is that those with federal grants who have previously been able to pay for publications costs (inflated or otherwise) with those grants are losing that privilege. I am sorry if I am NOT sympathetic that those who have already been blessed to receive federal grant funding should now have to endure the costs that those NOT so blessed have had to pay for out of pocket all along. A contingent faculty member seeking to publish research that they have had to conduct at their own expense still had to come up with the $4000 fee for a journal...out of their own salary...not grant funding. If they could not afford this the lack of publication was then held against them in seeking a faculty or research positions compared to those whose work was published with federal dollars. That is manifestly unjust and anti-merit! If those with federal grants are unwilling to pay the publication costs for their own work, they are free to refuse the federal funds and conduct their research at their own expense.
My philosophy on this is simple...if we are going to fix the problems in the conduct of science, then we must fix them for EVERYONE...not continue to favor a privileged few at the expense of the many. If the few can't handle that...then perhaps they should consider what happened to Marie Antoinette and her fellow "nobles" when she suggested the poor should eat cake. I know the Trump and his officials have not forgotten the lessons of history.
Agreed...which is why my suggestion is that university overhead be used to pay for the publication costs of ALL faculty regardless of tenure and grant status. The universities will have every incentive to bring the cost of publication down in such circumstances. Further, those concerned about losing the ability to pay for publication with federal funds would have no reason to oppose such a proposal...unless of course... their elite status is REALLY what they are protecting from competition on a more level playing field where assessment of merit is not masked by the cost of participation for some.
Yes, I see what you are getting at. If a massive cohort of universities and other "customers" of these publication houses banded together to boycott them and negotiate far more reasonable terms, it might work.
The problem is one of sciences own making. Originally, if you had something to say you published a book and gave copies to libraries and your colleagues. Then Scientific Societies started publishing journals paid for by members subscriptions and free volunteer support. "Reprints" of those copies were widely distributed to colleagues by mail, libraries swapped journals among themselves "You can have a copy if we get a copy of yours" type arrangements. Worst case you tracked down the author and wrote for a copy (by mail). Enter Murdoch, who started buying up scientific journals from struggling societies and selling them to everyone at a very inflated price. We provide the text, peer review for free, and he made annual profits of about 33%. Through mergers that market has contracted into a few. They are now offering side issues - tourism and trips, I see. A whole fake paper mill industry has sprung up - its better money than drugs in many cases. To add to the insult, about 30% of papers are now at risk as commercial websites collapse or get "purged" as with the recent case of two of Max Planck's early papers .
And only now we moan when the costs become eye-watering - US$3000 us per paper - why?! What's wrong with the old model? Print it "in house", put a copy in the library to register it and distribute others through ResearchGate or other (for now) free outlets?
I see this as an attempt to rein in the local monopoly that private equity has created buying up all the "respectable outlets" and jacking the price to the moon. This science local monopoly is the same sh*t Martin Shkreli did that got him prison time.
Nature: $12,850, CELL: $11,400, Nature Communications: $7,350. PNAS: $5475. This is robbery.
This science PE theft game has split the payer from the decision maker. The decision maker is the scientist. The payer is the federal government. That causes breakdown in the price negotiation. Payers have little incentive to push back.
There's a big problem when the internal cost is estimated at $350 or so. This will break because these PE thieves always go too far. They just don't care if the system crashes and burns, as long as they hit the wall higher than everyone else.
Failing to acknowledge the massive problem exemplifies and emphasizes the structure of the problem.
Of course, publishing costs are incredibly inflated. However, is this regulation the way to bring costs down? Perhaps, but I am skeptical.
I definitely believe that more outreach to the public and media is critical, not less. As it is, the STEM community does a fairly lousy job of letting people know what we do and why we do it.
As Morris points out, one of the worst effects of this planned regulation would be to potentially cripple our attempts to document carefully our research results. Documentation is an absolutely vital part of being in STEM.
To me the most jarring problem with this part of the OMB proposal is that is inconsistent with the current requirements of the funding agencies to upload all published papers in a public database where anyone around the world can read them for free. And the PIs are also required to convert the pdfs to the ADA-compliant form, so all disabled people in the world can access these papers for free. What OMB should have done is to instruct funding agencies to lift these requirements, abolish the database, and drop open-source/open-access mandates. The PIs should be free to pay publication costs if they wish to put their papers in open-access. Or publish in the journals without publication fees. Whatever the PIs find to be most suitable for their work.
Funds should indeed be available for publication as this is the final goal of research. However many scientific journals are predatory - costs being sometimes close to $4k dollars. I have been wondering if this rule will change this landscape, making society journal more attractive (some give free publication for the first 30 pages a year). I am wondering if there could be a win-win situation with limiting funds. For instance, setting a max allowed per paper (e.g. $1500).
Thanks, Luana. It seems that both you, and Edward (commented a few min. ago), are optimists… and I am a pessimist. It would be nice if both of you were right.. and these regulations would result in downward pressure on publication fees. (I regularly pay $4000 for open access in the best journal(s) in my field.) But (as the pessimist I am), if the OMB folks really wanted to keep costs down AND honor the purpose of research, they would have stipulated a maximum allowable fee for open access, and not deem the fee “unallowable”.
Yes. Limiting fees is sensible. So is turning a system like PubMed into a journal support system. Allow legitimate parties to start journals and operate them at minimal fee structure.
But bedrock of Republican ideology is limited government, and "free market" idealism that can only operate this way. Yes, it's largely wrong, often destructive and blinkered. It was this ideology that caused the first Trump administration's industrious government size cutters to get rid of the pandemic response team at CDC on the grounds it had been almost 20 years since it was needed, which was followed by Covid-19. Rather than call them back, Fauci was appointed to do it---and Fauci had no specific domain knowledge.
On the flip side, many of these idealists are also well versed practitioners of "legal theft". So they know exactly wtf is really going on at the big publishers.
Seems like they might be trying to get institutions to cover open-access fees, like many institutions already do. But it is a big burden on library budgets.
This is a charitable interpretation of the intent behind the proposal. You might be right. But in any case, the universities are not going to step up.
Yes. Few universities would. Harvard and Stanford would. Both already provide research money apart from the federal grant system.
I remember when George Church told me he had never gotten an RO1 grant. And his lab was comparable in size to the entire Buck Institute for Aging.
Would an easy fix/solution be to still require government funded articles to be uploaded to PubMed Central? As a medical librarian I use PubMed everyday.
Wouldn't the appropriate scientific groups publicize the research results - as part of their services to the communities?
Thank you for your question, David. I think we scientists are a little caual in our use of two terms -“publication”, and “publicize” - but they have distinct meanings. “Publication” refers to submitting a manuscript for peer review and ultimate (via printing/posting) inclusion in an issue of a recognized journal. Along with that goes linking the article to public databases so that others (mostly scientists but others too) can access readily. “Publicizing” a research result is more like advertising to journalists or directly to the public. Sometimes, a press office at a universitiy does that… but there are many results competing for their attention and only a few get “publicized”. The former is controlled by large by publishing companies (and costs the investigators money).. Nature, Science, Wiley… That is where the high fees come in. Some investigators have no access to funds other than their grants… and so want to have the freedom to use them for publication costs. The latter is done by individuals, univerisities… and as you suggest, sometimes by scientific societies. But the former (publication) is the most essential so that all reviewed results are entered into the official historical record and can be searched and consulted by other scientists formulating new theories and new experiments.
This is a great answer. I unwittingly assumed that most people know this, and everyone who is a STEM professional does, of course. But that leaves out a massive fraction of the people who read Heterodox STEM, and people who pay in one way or another for STEM R&D.
I agree that publications costs should be included as part of the budget for any research grant. However, the argument for such costs being covered applies to ALL scientists...not just those with the luxury of federal grant funding. Why should a scientist forced to do their work without federal funds also have to then pay to publish their work out of pocket while those feeding off the federal trough have the publication costs covered by taxpayers? This is manifestly unjust. There is a simple solution. REQUIRE universities to use some of their outrageous overhead funding to pay for ALL publications by their faculty...whether tenure track or not, whether grant funded or not, as a condition of receiving overhead funds. If that is not forthcoming, deduct the cost of publication from the PI's salary line in the grant. Either way, problem solved.
The cost to publish should drop, drastically. It is only as high as it is currently for historical reasons, because certain figures cornered the market, created a monopoly, and jacked up the costs sky high.
It was not always like this. It is only the result of corruption.
So the first thing that should be done is roll costs back immensely. It should NOT cost anywhere near as much to publish since the technology has made it cheaper to publish, not more expensive.
After the prices have been properly adjusted, then we can figure out who pays what. But the fundamental problem is that we are still caught in this current nightmare that was created in the last few decades by some prominent influential individuals.
That is very true...and should be addressed...but does not speak to the point. The complaint being raised is that those with federal grants who have previously been able to pay for publications costs (inflated or otherwise) with those grants are losing that privilege. I am sorry if I am NOT sympathetic that those who have already been blessed to receive federal grant funding should now have to endure the costs that those NOT so blessed have had to pay for out of pocket all along. A contingent faculty member seeking to publish research that they have had to conduct at their own expense still had to come up with the $4000 fee for a journal...out of their own salary...not grant funding. If they could not afford this the lack of publication was then held against them in seeking a faculty or research positions compared to those whose work was published with federal dollars. That is manifestly unjust and anti-merit! If those with federal grants are unwilling to pay the publication costs for their own work, they are free to refuse the federal funds and conduct their research at their own expense.
My philosophy on this is simple...if we are going to fix the problems in the conduct of science, then we must fix them for EVERYONE...not continue to favor a privileged few at the expense of the many. If the few can't handle that...then perhaps they should consider what happened to Marie Antoinette and her fellow "nobles" when she suggested the poor should eat cake. I know the Trump and his officials have not forgotten the lessons of history.
Sure, I hear you. But I favor going for the root causes.
The current system stinks. Tinkering around with this or that will not get at the core issues.
Agreed...which is why my suggestion is that university overhead be used to pay for the publication costs of ALL faculty regardless of tenure and grant status. The universities will have every incentive to bring the cost of publication down in such circumstances. Further, those concerned about losing the ability to pay for publication with federal funds would have no reason to oppose such a proposal...unless of course... their elite status is REALLY what they are protecting from competition on a more level playing field where assessment of merit is not masked by the cost of participation for some.
Yes, I see what you are getting at. If a massive cohort of universities and other "customers" of these publication houses banded together to boycott them and negotiate far more reasonable terms, it might work.
It is amazing how faculty, universities and professional societies can become responsible when it's THEIR money on the line.
The problem is one of sciences own making. Originally, if you had something to say you published a book and gave copies to libraries and your colleagues. Then Scientific Societies started publishing journals paid for by members subscriptions and free volunteer support. "Reprints" of those copies were widely distributed to colleagues by mail, libraries swapped journals among themselves "You can have a copy if we get a copy of yours" type arrangements. Worst case you tracked down the author and wrote for a copy (by mail). Enter Murdoch, who started buying up scientific journals from struggling societies and selling them to everyone at a very inflated price. We provide the text, peer review for free, and he made annual profits of about 33%. Through mergers that market has contracted into a few. They are now offering side issues - tourism and trips, I see. A whole fake paper mill industry has sprung up - its better money than drugs in many cases. To add to the insult, about 30% of papers are now at risk as commercial websites collapse or get "purged" as with the recent case of two of Max Planck's early papers .
And only now we moan when the costs become eye-watering - US$3000 us per paper - why?! What's wrong with the old model? Print it "in house", put a copy in the library to register it and distribute others through ResearchGate or other (for now) free outlets?
arXiv is better than ResearchGate, because it doesn't host pirated content.
I guess you have never heard of Robert Maxwell.
Interesting...
I see this as an attempt to rein in the local monopoly that private equity has created buying up all the "respectable outlets" and jacking the price to the moon. This science local monopoly is the same sh*t Martin Shkreli did that got him prison time.
Nature: $12,850, CELL: $11,400, Nature Communications: $7,350. PNAS: $5475. This is robbery.
This science PE theft game has split the payer from the decision maker. The decision maker is the scientist. The payer is the federal government. That causes breakdown in the price negotiation. Payers have little incentive to push back.
There's a big problem when the internal cost is estimated at $350 or so. This will break because these PE thieves always go too far. They just don't care if the system crashes and burns, as long as they hit the wall higher than everyone else.
Failing to acknowledge the massive problem exemplifies and emphasizes the structure of the problem.
Of course, publishing costs are incredibly inflated. However, is this regulation the way to bring costs down? Perhaps, but I am skeptical.
I definitely believe that more outreach to the public and media is critical, not less. As it is, the STEM community does a fairly lousy job of letting people know what we do and why we do it.
As Morris points out, one of the worst effects of this planned regulation would be to potentially cripple our attempts to document carefully our research results. Documentation is an absolutely vital part of being in STEM.