Editoria scientifica, le ambiguità dell’open-access

Abstract: Science must be open to all. This is the consideration behind the tendency of public research funding agencies (EU first of all) to “force” researchers to publish their results in open-access journals, or pay to ensure that articles are freely readable. Even the most remote researcher must be able to read a scientific article. Everything seems good, but is it really true? We see some side effects: (i) whoever reads no longer pays, but obviously someone has to pay, otherwise how publishing companies will survive? In fact, large groups are already organized, going towards open access fees, although more elegantly they speak of article processing charge (APC, mandatory); (ii) should this situation become general (all open-access journals with APC mandatory), researchers from a disadvantaged area could read, but they would have trouble publishing. It is true that journals could reduce or remove APCs in such cases, but these are always concessions to be negotiated on a case by case basis; (iii) as the most sensitive aspect: the balance of each journal will depend on how many APCs are collected, and editorial decisions are likely to be influenced by the ambition to increase journals’ budget; (iv) in the end, one may think that the tendency towards this kind of “open science” was appreciated by large publishing groups, which could see APC as a business richer than subscriptions. Some proposals in this regard: (i) if you have a good scientific “story” to tell, at present there is no need to resort to journals that apply APC mandatory, especially if managed by groups clearly oriented to business; rather, use your resources to buy free access to your work after acceptance; (ii) the funding agencies themselves could support free access to the most significant papers, after their publication, and scientific societies could play an important role in this respect; (iii) journals may require public data repository, and funding agencies may support open publications in these journals; to me, this seems one of the most important steps towards a truly open and increasingly credible science.