Molecular Biology Organization director calls for clarity on open access in scientific publishing

By Steven T. Corneliussen

In a commentary in the 16 March issue of Science, Maria Leptin, director of the European Molecular Biology Organization, argues that the economics of open access in scientific publishing should not dominate thinking. She declares, "We must protect the core principles of scientific publishing no matter what the model: the critical, independent scrutiny of scientific claims and long-term archiving of validated research."

But she also engages the economics. After briefly summarizing the controversy and "the dueling proposals recently introduced in the U.S. Congress," she notes that "most scientists support the concept of open access" but that there's "still much debate over the economics and potential consequences ... among researchers, publishers, universities, funding agencies, and governments." She emphasizes that "publishing costs money, and open access does not mean 'for free.'" She seeks to show that "in the absence of external support, an open access journal has to be either selective and expensive, or inexpensive but less selective."

Leptin asserts that open access "was driven in part by anger at the greed, real or perceived, of commercial publishers who were seen to exploit tax-funded research and volunteer academic referees to generate profits." She praises professional societies and not-for-profit publishers that "feed income from their journals back into scientific communities — for example, by providing travel stipends for young researchers."

She advocates "an overhaul of the financing of publishing" and predicts that "research funders, intergovernmental agencies, or even governments may need to contemplate direct financing of the costs for open access publishing to minimize the risk of unintended detrimental consequences."

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Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA's history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.