Results of our public consultation on a publication fee waiver policy

Researchers can experience financial constraints that limit their ability to pay a fee for open-access publishing for a number of reasons. While we are introducing a fee for publication at eLife in January, we feel strongly that the fee should not be a barrier to authors with excellent work to present, but limited means to pay. To help us develop a fee waiver policy that is straightforward and fair, we attempted to learn more about the circumstances that create financial constraints and make the publication fee a burden with an open public consultation this Autumn. The results have helped shape our waiver policy and are presented in detail below.

The consultation invited the community to describe the types of conditions we should try and take into account with our waiver policy. We asked about area of research, career stage, funding relationships, institutional affiliations, and geography, and received 489 responses from active researchers in life sciences and biomedicine.

Respondents expressed the strongest support for accommodating the circumstances of early-career researchers and those in developing countries (Table 1). However, the emerging picture is that a variety of circumstances may put researchers under financial pressure, and that there are no clearcut criteria that would lead to automatic qualification for a fee waiver.

Table 1. Level of support for waivers by category of circumstance

With these results in hand, we have taken a very flexible approach for researchers wishing to apply for fee waivers in the journal: “There are no strict criteria for a fee waiver because of the variety of circumstances that might lead to insufficient funds being available.” We will take decisions on case-by-case basis, asking the corresponding authors to provide a brief explanation for why the waiver is required. The full eLife waiver policy is available in our Author Guide.

We will monitor waiver requests closely to learn if more general patterns emerge over time, and bring them to the attention of science funders, institutions and the publishing community.

Further comments and questions about eLife’s publication fee and our waiver policy are very welcome, by email to fees[at]elifesciences.org.

More information:

• Inside eLife: Setting a fee for publication
• Editorial: Building a sustainable future for eLife
• Inside eLife: What it costs to publish
• Publication fees: FAQ

Detailed results

Between October 28 and November 22, 2016, eLife conducted an open online consultation to learn about researcher attitudes towards the funding available for open-access publishing. We received over 600 responses, with 489 provided by active researchers in life-sciences and biomedicine; 83% of them have experience of publishing open-access.

The aim of the consultation was to assess whether eLife should implement blanket waivers for researchers in specific circumstances, such as their career stage, field of study, type of institution, geography, or funding relationship – and to try and understand where respondents might be commenting based on their own situation or that of their colleagues’ situations. The survey questions are available in: elife_publication_fee_waivers_consultation_questions.pdf. The feedback was as follows.

Career stage

While there was a high level of support for waivers for researchers who are early in their careers, the financial complexity of being an early-stage investigator was made clear.

On one hand, it’s suggested that waivers should be offered across all stages we described as early-career: with 79% supporting waivers for postdocs, 71% supporting waivers for PIs with less than two years’ independent experience, and 67% supporting waivers for PIs with up to five years of independent experience. 22% also felt that waivers should be applicable to PIs with more than five years independent experience.

On the other hand, the financial situation of early-career researchers is not completely clearcut. Several funding agencies provide early-career scientists with generous start-up grants, which may put them in a better financial position than some of their mid-career colleagues. At the same time some fellowships don’t include any funds for research and/or publishing fees, and university-offered start-up grants can be much lower, covering only basic research costs.

Also, many respondents recognise that postdocs are not normally responsible for the publication fees for their work although exceptions to that rule were pointed out.

Geography

72% of respondents agreed that investigators in low and middle income countries, such as those listed by the World Bank, should be eligible for a full or partial publication fee waiver – especially those working on grants from local governments. However, it’s also recognised that large consortia and international funding agencies, like the Wellcome Trust or the Gates Foundation, often provide generous funding for research and publishing in these areas.

At the same time it’s been brought to our attention that, in many countries not considered low-income, scientific funding has deteriorated recently and made it difficult for researchers there to afford publication fees and commit to open-access publishing. Examples mentioned include India, Israel, countries in Southern Europe, and Taiwan.

Field of research

Respondents pointed out that there is limited funding in specific areas of research, and highlighted epidemiology and ecology as being under particular strain. So, we asked their colleagues if researchers working in any specific discipline of science should be eligible for a waiver. All agreed that waivers should be offered in all disciplines, depending on funding situation, although the highest proportion of respondents supported waivers for researchers in ecology.

While the general perception is that basic sciences receive more modest funding than applied sciences, the difference is driven by more complex factors; discipline in itself isn’t sufficient as a universal basis for a waiver.

Institution type

Although a majority of respondents felt that researchers at certain institutions should be eligible for fee waivers, there was not clear agreement onthe type of institution that would qualify.

Funding source

While many science funders support open-access publishing, we were curious to know what the landscape looks like from the researcher’s perspective, and whether funding source could or should be associated with a fee waiver.

Only a minority of researchers felt that operating on a grant from any specific agency should count towards eligibility for a waiver (32%). They offered a long list of agencies they thought would not support open-access publication fees, including small private foundations, Latin American agencies in general, MINECO in Spain, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia in Portugal, and funding agencies in Japan such as the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science.

Some agencies are understood to make provisions for open-access publishing that may not be sufficient to cover the planned fee at eLife. Deutsche Forschungs Gesellschaft, National Health and Medical Research Council in Australia, Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada, and governmental funding in India were mentioned.

Notably, many respondents suggested funding agencies with prominent open- or public-access policies may not explicitly fund open-access publishing, such as EC Horizon 2020 and US federal agencies including the National Institutes of Health.

Special circumstances

We also tried to identify some specific circumstances where limitations on funding might call for a fee waiver. All the suggestions received more than 50% support (n=473), as shown in Table 2 and it seems likely that most scientists would experience these types of situations at some point in their careers.

Table 2. Proportions of scientists wishing to see waivers offered in specific circumstances:

Of the researchers in the survey (n=467) 55% would describe themselves as being affected by at least one of the above situations, and 76% would describe many of their colleagues as being in such circumstances.

We also invited respondents to suggest other circumstances where a waiver could be required. The responses touched on several themes.

• Studies of immediate relevance to society in areas such as human or wildlife diseases, conservation, climate change, or natural disasters.
• Papers produced without affiliation with an academic institution or significant research funding
• Fluctuating economic environments: in the current economic climate, it was pointed out that unexpected currency devaluation or revoked government funding (as happened in Southern Europe not long ago) can shrink the research budgets significantly.

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Information about funding for open-access publishing

Finally, we took the opportunity in the consultation to ask researchers if their funders or institutions are providing funds for open-access publishing. Almost one third of respondents weren’t sure with regard to their funders, and a fifth weren’t sure about their institution.

Fig. 1. Researchers responses to the questions if their funders provide them with funds for open-access publishing.

Fig. 2. Researchers’ responses to the question if their institutions provide them with funds for open-access publishing.

We also asked where researchers look for information related to available funding sources for open-access publishing (Fig. 3). Researchers look for such information primarily on their funder’s website (64%) or in their funding agreement (57%). Some look for that information on their institution’s website (47%), or on the publisher’s website (42%). Only 28% of researchers check with their library services (28%). A small proportion (10%) use other sources - searching on the internet in general, calling the funder directly, contacting their grant management, administration or finance team, or simply asking colleagues.

Fig. 3. Information sources researchers would use to find out about funding for OA publishing.