These issues beg the question: How can ethical change be effectuated in academic publishing, and how can ECRs contribute without risking their careers? Here we propose a portfolio of actions to promote positive change in the academic publishing system that can be safely implemented by ECRs, as well as supporting actions that can be implemented by established researchers (Fig. 1):
- Focus on research quality. When evaluating research in discussions amongst peers, focus on the inherent quality of the research rather than where it was published to discourage the branding of a journal as an indicator of research excellence (“San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment” 2013).
- Raise awareness. Initiate discussion and speak about the issues with the academic publishing system and their possible solutions. This can be done within immediate networks (e.g. discussions within labs or departmental seminars), or more broadly (e.g. at conferences, blog/social media posts, etc.), and is particularly effective if done by established researchers with large networks.
- Join ethical initiatives. Start or join initiatives that aim to change the current publishing system. For example, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessments (DORA) combats the misuse of journal impact indices, which can be linked to empowering unethically profitable journals (“San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment” 2013). Another example is ‘Peer Community In’ (PCI), an initiative that provides free, high-quality peer review and publication of preprint manuscripts from a diverse range of disciplines, without the need for authors or readers to pay subscription or publication fees. PCI communities exist for both ecology and evolutionary biology as well as other related disciplines such as genomics or palaeontology.
- Cite ethically. Cite scientific papers based on their inherent scientific quality rather than the prestige of the journal. When several articles can be cited, favour the one published in an ethical journal. This adaptive measure can reduce the disparity in impact factor between unethical and ethical journals.
- Selectively peer review. Preferentially peer review for and accept editorial positions at ethical journals.
- Prioritise ethical journals. When choosing between journals with similar impact factors. For example, in ecology and evolution, DAFNEE (Database of Academia Friendly jourNals in Ecology and Evolution, https://dafnee.isem-evolution.fr/) is a useful resource for informing this choice. This database is an initiative to improve transparency and raise awareness of ethical journals and lists ethical journals as those “owned or controlled by public institutions, non-profit organisations, or groups of scientists such as learned societies” (Racimo et al. 2022). It lists the topic, business model, academic partnership, publications fees, and impact factor of 475 journals (as of February 1st, 2024).
- Demonstrate your values. Explain your ethical publishing strategy when applying for a position. By justifying why a journal’s ethics has been prioritised over its impact factor, this demonstrates your values to the selection committee, normalises this practice and will contribute to raising awareness.
In addition to the previous actions, more established researchers can implement the following:
8. Boycott unethical journals (which serves as an extension of actions #5 and #6). This can include ceasing to publish in these journals and resigning from editorial roles. A full boycott is a higher-risk action which we do not recommend for ECRs but for researchers with permanent positions. However, we acknowledge that the amount of risk that an individual chooses to take is highly personal. By extension, boycotting remains an available option for ECRs should they choose.
9. Promote an ethical publishing culture. This can be achieved by fostering a lab environment in which all members feel comfortable prioritising ethical publishing (see action #6) and educating mentees about the current challenges and pitfalls of the publishing system. This will provide ECRs with the knowledge and resources necessary to make informed publishing choices from the start of their careers.
10. Evaluate holistically. Use holistic researcher evaluation criteria and metrics (“San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment” 2013; Schmidt et al. 2021). This will allow the academic community to dissociate from evaluations that rely heavily on impact factors, which feed the current unethical publishing system. This policy can be implemented by established researchers at different scales:
a. At the individual level, when serving on evaluation committees (e.g. hiring or grant panels). This can be achieved through panel discussions and prioritising requests to sit on evaluation committees where sufficient time is given to make a qualitative assessment of applicants’ research quality.
b. At the institutional level, when developing evaluation policies for hiring and promotion. For example, the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) now requires the evaluation of researchers based on: (i) the scientific quality of the candidate’s work (not the prestige or impact factor of the journal), (ii) a limited number of publications, and (iii) a larger diversity of professional activities—including preprints, data sharing, software production, training, innovation and management, among other criteria. Similar approaches are being discussed or implemented by research institutions across Europe including: UK Research and Innovation, the Dutch National Research Council, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Luxembourg Research Council, and the Health Research Board Ireland (Hazlett 2021). To be truly beneficial, any changes to evaluation policy and the reasoning behind them should be transparent (e.g. Saenen et al. 2021).
CONCLUSION
The academic publishing system is in crisis, and systemic change is needed to make it more fair and equitable. While there is widespread motivation and desire to make large-scale publishing changes across the academic system, the task feels daunting. To address this, we suggest a set of actions to promote change that can be implemented by researchers across varying aspects of their academic lives—as readers, authors, reviewers, editors, evaluation committee members and colleagues. While many of the actions we propose are lower-risk and can be implemented by ECRs, these actions must be complemented by higher-risk ones undertaken by established researchers. While the main goal of these actions is to improve the publishing system in ecology and evolution, they will also address other inequalities, including the accessibility of research in general, and the evaluation of researchers for employment and promotion. Researchers in ecology and evolution could learn from fairer practices in other fields, such as the common use of alphabetical authorship order in mathematics and economics (Waltman 2012), and the propensity to use preprint servers for studies in physics. Here we focus on researchers as the primary engine of change, yet governments arguably have a part to play to ensure public funding is not lost to the large profit margins of private publishing houses. We hope that through taking these suggested actions, and with the support of established researchers, ECRs will be instrumental in advancing changes that create a more ethical publishing system. As a last note, acknowledging the biases that may arise from our collective experience in the field of ecology and evolution, we embrace the opportunity for feedback and open discussions on this topic, especially from those whose backgrounds differ from the authors.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Nicolas Mouquet, Ophélie Ronce and François Massol for valuable discussion. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their relevant suggestions.
FUNDING
All co-authors are employees or are affiliated with the French Foundation for Biodiversity Research, in the Centre for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity (FRB-CESAB).
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTION
Conceptualization: AR, JB, SDA, AJH, NM, BFO, CPC, ERB, MS, AS, DV
Supervision: AR, JB, SDA, AJH, NM, BFO, CPC, ERB, MS, AS, DV
Writing – original draft: AR, JB, SDA, AJH, NM, BFO, CPC, ERB, MS, AS, DV
Writing – review & editing: AR, JB, SDA, AJH, NM, BFO, CPC, ERB, MS, AS, DV
[1] https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/WLY/financials/annual/income-statement
[2] https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/RELX/financials/annual/income-statement