Scientific Publishing and SciPost Illustrations by Dom McKenzie Claudio Attaccalite ETSF 2017 Frascati (Rome) The views expressed in this presentation do not necessarily reflect the views of the SciPost fondation

Scientific Publishing is a remarkable big business With a total global revenues of more than £19bn, it weights between recording and film industries but it is more profitable For example Elsevier in 2010 posted a profit margin of 36%. Higher than Apple or Google Money goes to shareholders Profit margin, net margin, net profit margin or net profit ratio is a measure of profitability. It is calculated by finding the net profit as a percentage of the revenue This margin raised to 40% in 2013 20% for society publishers and 25% for university publishers Successful magazines make profits of around 12-15%

Why Scientific Publishing is so profitable? A triple pay system Scientists give their results to publishers for free Governments fund scientists Scientists peer review manuscripts In a traditional market suppliers are paid for the goods they provide Cost of additional contents as editorials, commentary, and journalism Governments fund libraries Publishers sell products to libraries

What about (gold) Open access In physics the major part of journals allows authors to self-archive contents that have been published Open-access journals have a lower publication cost (only online, new companies, better workflow) Conversion to OPJ is slow because subscriptions are paid by universities, and for scientists perspective subscriptional journals are for free. but Different call for OpenScience from Europe and other countries Publicly funded research output to be open access

(Gold) Open access is not a solution Publication cost is proportional to impact factor (you can pay to get more visibility) Acceptance rate is higher PloS ONE $1350 70% Physical Review Letters $2700 35% Nature $30k-40k 8%

green Open Access (SciPost and others) Let’s bring some money back to science

https://scipost.org/ An idea of Jean-Sébastien Caux

Two-way open access: for readers and authors! Managed by professional scientists Non-profit Peer-witnessed refereeing Scientific publications undergo a peer refereeing process, witnessed by the community instead of hidden behind closed doors. Accountable and credited refereeing Peer refereeing should be accountable, and should be incentivized by being credited Post-publication evaluation Peer evaluation does not stop at the moment of publication.

Three referees are contacted Submission through arXiv SciPost Editor (me) Referees report and editor recommendation Rejection Publication Comments Decision on publication or rejection is taken by the Editorial College

Let’s bring some money back to science Conclusions green Open Access journal (SciPost and others) are a valid alternative to Open-Access Journal and Subscriptional Journal They will not substitute normal journals but can push them to low their prices ‘You have no idea how profitable these journals are once you stop doing anything. When you’re building a journal, you spend time getting good editorial boards etc.. and then ….. we stop doing all that stuff and then the cash just pours out and you wouldn’t believe how wonderful it is.’ Pierre Vinken, the CEO of Elsevier Let’s bring some money back to science

References: SciPost, http://scipost.org Open access: The true cost of science publishing https://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676 How much does it cost to publish in Open Access? http://blog.scielo.org/en/2013/09/18/how-much-does-it-cost-to-publish-in-open-access/#.WabWThdLeis To Open Access or not to Open Access? http://new.amsterdamscience.org/wp-content/uploads/issue_04.pdf Giornali ad accesso aperto e giornali per ricercatori ricchi (italian) https://fisiciaroundtheworld.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/giornali-ad-accesso-aperto-e-giornali-per-ricercatori-ricchi/ Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science? https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science SciELO, http://www.scielo.br/ Quantum Journal, http://quantum-journal.org/ The Truth about China’s Cash-for-Publication Policy https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608266/the-truth-about-chinas-cash-for-publication-policy/