Estimate from @mbeisen.bsky.social that about $1.5B (3%) of the $50B NIH budget goes to publishing fees. If we are looking to cut government waste, this might be a good place to start. - ThreadSky

tonyzador.bsky.social • 86 days ago

Estimate from @mbeisen.bsky.social that about $1.5B (3%) of the $50B NIH budget goes to publishing fees.

If we are looking to cut government waste, this might be a good place to start.

Comments

clauswilke.com•86 days ago

Yes. Problem is you can't just disallow publication fees on federal grants. That will just push people to use other funds, and it'll create huge inequity among those that have such funds and those that don't. You have to somehow prevent people from publishing in APC journals in the first place.

tonyzador.bsky.social•86 days ago

True--up until the tipping point for replacing legacy publishing. The generation making promotion & grant decisions today all saw disruption of music etc by the internet. Crazy that sci publishing still intact

I am struck by how quickly bluesky exploded

Like bankruptcy: "Slowly, then all at once"

clauswilke.com•86 days ago

I don't see it. All the young faculty in my department aim for Nature and Science publications. Many don't preprint. And many routinely publish in the insanely expensive Nature Communications. Journals called our bluff a decade ago and they were right.

clauswilke.com•86 days ago

Not really sure how you'd do that. Mandate that everything that received federal funding is published exclusively in PubMed Central?

kamdh.bsky.social•86 days ago

Yep. Axe the open access fees, that's just a new racket. Just put it on Biorxiv and be done with it....

shadowmonk.bsky.social•84 days ago

You are going to have to explain how you arrived at that figure. A typical R01 sets aside a few thousand for publication fees per year, out of a budget of several hundred thousand. I think you are off by an order of magnitude at least.

tonyzador.bsky.social•83 days ago

Institutional library fees come out of indirect

shadowmonk.bsky.social•83 days ago

Ah, I was thinking of fees specific to publication of findings, not subscription costs.

psmaldino.bsky.social•86 days ago

Yes. It's a travesty that individual researchers/labs pay anything to publish their work. https://osf.io/preprints/osf/3ez9v

lyledal.bsky.social•84 days ago

Oh, sweetie. They aren't *really* interested in cutting waste!

tonyzador.bsky.social•84 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/tonyzador.bsky.social/post/3lcl3xcnjus2b

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply