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stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
Stefanie Haustein
@stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
550 followers 570 following 320 posts
Associate prof, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa @uottawa.ca
Co-director, Scholarly Communications Lab #ScholCommLab #FirstGen

open science | bibliometrics | open access | research assessment | metascience
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stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
Stefanie Haustein @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca · 11d
Over the past months (and at least 11 versions!), I was lucky to work with 11 amazing colleagues on a call to action to reform academic publishing.

Not another declaration, but an appeal to our powerful friends, research funders & institutions, to Stop the Drain of Scientific Publishing. 1/n
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
hansonmark.bsky.social
Thanks to the LSE blog for the highlight!

The one constant of all publishing reform efforts has been ludicrous publisher profit margins. We specifically highlight a need for funders to act.

Find out more
Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: bit.ly/StrainQSS
Oligopoly: bit.ly/OligSciPub
November 19, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
metaror.bsky.social
🎈 Time flies! Exactly one year ago today @rorinstitute.bsky.social and @aimosinc.bsky.social launched MetaROR, a platform to publish metaresearch through the publish-review-curate approach.

Over the course of the year, we published 28 articles reviewed by 59 different reviewers.

[1/3]
MetaROR Turns One - MetaROR
An exciting year of open, community-driven evaluation of metaresearch One [...]
metaror.org
November 21, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
lseblogs.bsky.social
Money, Time, Trust, Control – How commercial publishers drain science

@danbrockington.bsky.social @aileenfyfe.bsky.social @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca for @lseimpactblog.bsky.social
Money, Time, Trust, Control – How commercial publishers drain science - Impact of Social Sciences
Have the interests of commercial publishers now become antithetical to the pursuit of knowledge?
blogs.lse.ac.uk
November 21, 2025 at 8:32 AM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
We summarized the Drain paper in an LSE Impact blog post this week. Please share in your networks, ideally with those we are calling to action: research funders and university leadership
blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci... #AcademicSky #AcademicPublishing #OpenAccess #ScholComm
November 20, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
carl-abrc.bsky.social
CARL's Fall Member Meeting is off to a strong start!💡

Members met in Montebello for strategic committee meetings & discussions on Intellectual Freedom & Open Science.

Thanks to keynote Randy Boyagoda & panelists @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca @lariviev.bsky.social David Tweddell & Kathleen Shearer.
November 19, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
carl-abrc.bsky.social
La Réunion d'automne de l’ABRC démarre en force avec des présentations et riches discussions sur la liberté intellectuelle et la science ouverte.💡

Merci à notre conférencier principal Randy Boyagoda, ainsi que @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca, @lariviev.bsky.social, David Tweddell et Kathleen Shearer.
November 19, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
leighbutler.bsky.social
The collective profits are staggering, actually overwhelming. So, let's resist: "The good news is that if the drain has a particular history and geography, it means that it is not inevitable. It can be resisted." @danbrockington.bsky.social @aileenfyfe.bsky.social @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
November 19, 2025 at 10:05 PM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
Just reflecting that I have presented to university leaders, library leaders and editors. Looks like funders should be next and we can stop the drain before Christmas :P :D (4/4)
November 19, 2025 at 8:55 PM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
All three talks were on The Drain of Scientific Publishing but with different emphases and pieces of evidence. For those interested, you can find the slidedecks on Zenodo:

RSC: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
Annual Reviews: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
CARL: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... (EN & FR) (3/n)
November 19, 2025 at 8:55 PM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
Also a huge thanks to @annualreviews.bsky.social for inviting me to speak at the Annual Reviews Salon Speaker Series yesterday. It was amazing to hear from so many experienced editors and editorial board members. (2/n)
November 19, 2025 at 8:55 PM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
It's been a fun week, but 3 presentations plus 3h of teaching in 5 days is definitely my limit. Thank you for those who came and engaged at the panels at the The Royal Society of Canada on Saturday and at @carl-abrc.bsky.social in Montebello today. (1/n)
November 19, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
lseimpactblog.bsky.social
💥New: Money, Time, Trust, Control – How commercial publishers drain science

✍️ @danbrockington.bsky.social @aileenfyfe.bsky.social @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca

#AcademicSky #ScholComm #AcademicPublishing
Money, Time, Trust, Control – How commercial publishers drain science - Impact of Social Sciences
Have the interests of commercial publishers now become antithetical to the pursuit of knowledge?
blogs.lse.ac.uk
November 19, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
retractionwatch.com
A paper critiquing post-publication peer review has numerous made-up references, including a @nature.com article falsely attributed to our Ivan Oransky.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
PubPeer - An expert criticism on post-publication peer review platform...
There are comments on PubPeer for publication: An expert criticism on post-publication peer review platforms: the case of pubpeer (2025)
pubpeer.com
November 16, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
hansonmark.bsky.social
The solutions of the past 3 decades have failed to change the incentives of #PublishOrPerish. As a result, researcher funding, time, control, and trust has been lost.

The ONE CONSTANT in the wake of the serial crisis, #PlanS and #OpenAccess reform has been publish profit margins.

2/n
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
peaseroland.bsky.social
The numbers in here are huge, ~$2.5bn in profits (~35% profit margin) to 4 major academic publishing houses.
How much lost research expenditure does that equate to??
Windfall tax, anyone?
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 14d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 14, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
golareh.bsky.social
This is now canon.
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 14d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 14, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
maebhnif.bsky.social
"Rather than democratizing scientific publishing, Open Access has helped commercial publishers generate more profits (publishers found ways to shift paywalls from readers to authors). More stringent reforms are required to tackle misaligned drivers of scientific publishing."
Fernanda Beigel et al.
madhupai.bsky.social Madhu Pai, MD, PhD @madhupai.bsky.social · 11d
The Drain of Scientific Publishing

arxiv.org/pdf/2511.04820
November 14, 2025 at 2:19 PM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
The authors are always happy to chat :) @hansonmark.bsky.social @danbrockington.bsky.social @paolocrosetto.bsky.social
November 17, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
ottolilllebo.bsky.social
Ganske sykt å se på profittmarginen til selskapene. Kanskje Norge bør fase ut oljen og heller kjøpe Elsevier 😂

Bakgrunn: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
November 17, 2025 at 11:58 AM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
Yes, 100 true. ACS has also introduced the "Article Development Cost" (ADC) which is essentially having author pay for immediate green OA (the right to self-archive the manuscript via a repository), while the VoR at the journal remains paywalled. If you want VoR to be OA you pay a hefty hybrid APC.
November 17, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 🎤

If you’ve read this far and still need convincing, please check out our preprint arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 and this infographic: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
10/10
The four-fold drain of scientific publishing: Money, Time, Trust, and Control.
November 13, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Reposted by Stefanie Haustein
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
Over the past months (and at least 11 versions!), I was lucky to work with 11 amazing colleagues on a call to action to reform academic publishing.

Not another declaration, but an appeal to our powerful friends, research funders & institutions, to Stop the Drain of Scientific Publishing. 1/n
November 13, 2025 at 8:17 PM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
So while still a financial barrier to authors, APCs up to 1k (well below 2/3k USD averages) can be justified as a publishing model to sustain journal production costs. The most equitable model would be diamond OA w/ non-profit publisher, where costs are paid by a third party (funder, society) (5/5)
November 17, 2025 at 4:50 AM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
including conferences, student scholarships and awards. This also applies to many society journals published by for-profit publishers (eg JASIST w/ Wiley). That’s why it’s so hard for them to leave these publishing models (4/n)
November 17, 2025 at 4:50 AM
stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca
IMHO fees of $2k and above are unreasonable, fees of $5k and above are almost certainly prestige markups and what sustain profit rates. There are non-profit publishers that behave like the big commercial publishers (eg, ACS) because their publishing branch sustains the entire society (3/n)
November 17, 2025 at 4:50 AM