Scholarly Publishing & Open Access
Coverage of the scholarly publishing system: open-access policy and transformative agreements, article processing charge changes, journal launches and closures, indexing and delisting decisions by Scopus and Web of Science, publisher consolidation and pricing, and the evolution of preprint and peer-review models.
Beats in this category
- APCs & Publishing Costs
Article processing charge changes, waiver and discount policy, and the broader economics of who pays to publish. A recurring beat as publishers reprice annually and funders adjust …
- Indexing & Delisting
Coverage decisions by Scopus, Web of Science, DOAJ, PubMed and other indexes — additions, delistings, and the criteria behind them. Consequential because indexing status directly a…
- Journal Launches & Closures
New journals, journal closures and mergers, editorial-board resignations and mass departures, and journal transfers between publishers.…
- Open Access Policy & Agreements
Open-access mandates, transformative and read-and-publish agreements, and national OA negotiations. Covers what a given deal actually entitles authors to, which is frequently narro…
- Preprints & Peer Review Models
Preprint server developments and the evolution of review models — registered reports, open and post-publication review, publish-review-curate, and overlay journals.…
All coverage (47)
- Will Paying Reviewers Ease the Peer Review Crisis?
Advances in Psychology has paid $100/review since 2022; NIH may reward journals that pay reviewers ~$50/hr and publish their comments.…
- ANID’s Open Access Mandate Goes Full-Scale in 2026
Chile’s ANID is extending its 2022 Open Access Policy across every instrument it funds in 2026, backed by a new EspacioCiencia repository service and renewed InES Ciencia Abierta capacity funding. Her…
- BMJ Study: AI Flags 9.9% of Cancer Papers
A BMJ study used a BERT classifier to screen 2.6 million cancer papers, flagging 9.9% as suspected paper-mill output — a scale manual review cannot match.…
- Clarivate Puts Surgery Journal Group on Hold
Clarivate paused Web of Science indexing for six IJS Publishing Group journals after mandatory reporting-guideline citations inflated their impact factor.…
- RoRI’s Future of Peer Review Report
RoRI’s PEER REVIEW project wraps up with a June 2026 report: peer review has hit a breaking point, and needs a layered, funder-led reform blueprint.…
- 2026 JCR: 521 Journals Get First Impact Factor
Clarivate’s 2026 Journal Citation Reports gave 521 journals a Journal Impact Factor for the first time, from 47 countries/regions, with 58% based outside the US and Western Europe — part of a multi-ye…
- ICLR 2026 Breach: Bribery, AI-Written Reviews
A Nov. 2025 OpenReview bug exposed ICLR 2026 reviewer identities, enabling bribery and harassment amid separate reports that 21% of reviews were AI-generated.…
- CAPES-Springer Nature Sign 2026-2028 OA Deal
CAPES and Springer Nature have signed a three-year transformative agreement (Jan 2026-Dec 2028) giving authors at 400+ Brazilian institutions APC-free open-access publishing in 1,730+ hybrid journals …
- ASTM Journal Retracts ~170 Papers: A Case Study
ASTM’s Journal of Testing and Evaluation retracted ~166 papers after a vendor found compromised peer review in guest-edited special issues.…
- arXiv’s One-Year Ban for Unchecked AI Content
In May 2026, arXiv began enforcing a one-year submission ban for authors whose papers show unchecked AI-generated content — hallucinated references or leftover chatbot text. Here’s what triggers it, h…
- HHMI’s and the Gates Foundation’s Preprint Mandates: What Changed for Authors
HHMI (2026) and Gates Foundation (2025) both push preprints, but neither strictly requires posting before submission — what each policy actually says.…
- CAUL: How Australia and New Zealand’s University Libraries Landed Four 2026 Publisher Deals
CAUL reached in-principle 2026 open-access deals with Taylor & Francis, Springer Nature, Wiley, and, after stalled November talks, Elsevier.…
- Equal-Contribution Authorship Is Rising Sharply, a 480,000-Paper Bibliometric Analysis Finds
A 2026 bibliometric analysis of roughly 480,000 PubMed and PMC records (2010-2024) finds equal-contribution tags climbing from a median of about 19% of articles in 2015 to over 30% in 2024, with China…
- swissuniversities Ends Springer Nature ‘No-Deal’ Gap
Switzerland had no national Springer Nature contract from Jan-June 2026. A new 2026-2029 Read & Publish deal, signed 10 June 2026, adds Gold OA.…
- Open Research Europe’s 2026 Relaunch: CERN Hosts Diamond OA Expansion to 11 Countries
CERN will operate the next phase of Open Research Europe from autumn 2026, backed by roughly €17 million in funding from 16 agencies across 11 European countries. Authorship eligibility expands beyond…
- Fully AI-Generated Papers Are Now Passing Peer Review: What Zochi and Sakana Mean for Authorship
Zochi (Intology) and Sakana’s AI Scientist each passed real peer review in 2025 — one at ACL, one at an ICLR workshop. What it means for authorship.…
- arXiv’s 2026 Policy Overhaul: Endorsement, English-Language, and AI-Content Rules
Between late 2025 and early 2026, arXiv tightened endorsement (no more institutional-email-only qualification), required full English-language versions of every submission, and began requiring documen…
- Frontiers’ 122-Article Retraction: Inside a 35-Author Peer-Review Collusion Network
Frontiers retracted 122 articles after uncovering a ~35-author peer-review collusion network with undisclosed COI and citation manipulation.…
- Stolen Study, Sold as Authorship Slots on Telegram
A rejected economics paper was resold on Telegram as authorship slots for as little as $55, published, then retracted — a documented paper-mill tactic.…
- Peer Review Week 2026: “Peer Review Capacity, Volume, Speed, and Quality”
Peer Review Week 2026 runs Sept 14–18 under the theme “Peer Review Capacity: Volume, Speed, and Quality.” What it means for reviewers and publishers.…
- Single-Authored Systematic Reviews Are Rising — and Straining Evidence-Synthesis Norms
Bibliometric data show single-author systematic reviews climbing steadily since 2000 — including inside Cochrane’s own database — despite guidance calling for independent dual-reviewer screening.…
- UK Universities Reject Elsevier’s New 2026 Deal: Kent, Essex, Sussex, Sheffield, Lancaster, Surrey Walk Away
Sheffield, Lancaster, Surrey, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and York declined Elsevier’s 2026 deal after Jisc’s national negotiation cycle, citing unsustainable costs.…
- Second Wave of 2026 Editorial-Board Resignations
A second 2026 wave: editors left journals at Springer Nature, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis over volume quotas, publisher control, and open-access disputes.…
- 2026 Editorial Board Mass Resignations
Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Taylor & Francis journals saw mass editor resignations in 2026 over governance, an APC mandate, and referee load.…
- AI Peer Reviewers Gamed by Paper Laundering
ICML 2026 study: AI peer-review scores can be gamed by cosmetic ‘paper laundering’ rewrites, a risk authors warn could disadvantage novel work.…
- OMB Grants Rule Would Give Political Appointees Final Sign-Off, Recast Peer Review as Advisory
OMB’s proposed grants rewrite would give political appointees final sign-off and recast peer review as advisory. Comments closed at 340,000+.…
- OSTP’s ‘Golden Age’ Report: What Grants Teams Need
OSTP’s July 2026 report and FY2028 memo direct agencies to fund researchers over institutions and diversify grants beyond peer review.…
- Wiley Investigates Alleged Peer-Review Extortion
Wiley is investigating a peer reviewer accused of demanding payment to approve a manuscript at journal Security and Privacy.…
- The Greenidge Case: A Research-Integrity Review
A Tufts historian’s award-winning book failed an external peer review. The AHA rescinded her prize; she’s no longer at Tufts and disputes the findings.…
- Springer Nature: China’s Gold OA Articles Now Draw 40% of Citations From Abroad
Springer Nature reports nearly 40% of citations to China’s 2022 gold OA articles now come from outside China, while a separate June 2026 announcement puts its EU open-access agreement coverage at 74% …
- Sage Retracts 8 Papers by Ex-Editor Yannick Griep
Sage retracted 8 papers by ex-editor Yannick Griep for self-reviewed peer review; Radboud separately confirmed data fabrication.…
- Study: 88% of arXiv Preprints Leak Hidden Data in Source Files
A 2.7-million-preprint IEEE S&P 2026 study found 88% of arXiv submissions leak hidden source-file data: passwords, API keys, GPS coordinates.…
- Library ‘Big Deal’ Cancellations in 2026: Alberta, Delaware, and UBC Walk Away
In 2026, the University of Alberta, University of Delaware, and University of British Columbia each ended a major bundled journal subscription — with Springer Nature, Wiley, and Sage respectively — ci…
- arXiv Becomes an Independent Nonprofit, Spun Out of Cornell
On July 1, 2026, arXiv left Cornell University’s umbrella to become arXiv, Inc., an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Cornell and the Simons Foundation are founding Members with board seats on a 12-mem…
- GAO’s 2026 Report: Why Federal Agencies Are Struggling to Manage Public Access Compliance
GAO-26-107738 (May 2026) found 2 of 9 agencies lacked a public-access policy, reuse-rights gaps at NSF/USDA, and costs it warns could reach $1B/year.…
- ARC Open Access Policy Takes Effect: What Changed in 2026
ARC’s updated Open Access Policy took effect 1 July 2026: immediate OA for articles, a 12-month window for books, and new Indigenous research provisions.…
- Publishers, Turow Sue Google Over Gemini Training
Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, and Scott Turow sued Google in SDNY, alleging Gemini trained on Google Books, Play Books, and Scholar without authorization.…
- NIH’s Emergency Peer Review Overhaul, Explained
NIH triaged applications into discussion tiers to clear its shutdown backlog; a related funding-criteria shift drew reported political-influence concerns.…
- Wiley to Launch Eight New “Advanced” Portfolio Journals by End of 2026
Wiley will launch eight new journals under its “Advanced” brand by the end of 2026, expanding beyond materials science into oncology, AI, robotics, and chemical engineering. For researchers and resear…
- Cross-Publisher Study: Elsevier Retracts Least, Reinstates Most Among Major Publishers
A new analysis of the Retraction Watch Database (1997-2026) finds Elsevier has the lowest normalized retraction rate and by far the highest reinstatement rate among ten major publishers — with a cavea…
- cOAlition S Strategy 2026-2030: A Shift Beyond Strict Plan S Mandates
cOAlition S’s Strategy 2026-2030 widens accepted open-access routes beyond Plan S’s original three, deferring rule changes to a 2026-2027 review.…
- Federal Public-Access Mandates Beyond NIH: 2026 Status
The 2022 Nelson Memo required every federal funder, not just NIH, to adopt zero-embargo public access by Dec. 2025 — here’s where agencies stand in 2026.…
- Reproducibility checklists at journal-submission time
Reproducibility checklists at submission have proliferated. A walkthrough of the major ones, what they catch, and what authors should do to satisfy them efficiently.…
- Open peer review: signals, identifiers, attribution
Open peer review is mainstreaming. The signals, identifiers, and attribution mechanisms that make it work — and the gaps that still need closing in 2026.…
- Diamond OA at the inflection: SciELO + Latindex + AmeliCA
Latin America’s Diamond OA infrastructures have run a successful model for two decades. What the rest of the world is finally learning from SciELO, Latindex, and AmeliCA.…
- Plan S and Diamond OA: where the open-access conversation is going
Plan S compliance, Diamond OA’s rise, S2O models, Read-and-Publish agreements, and the slow rebalancing of who pays for global scholarly publishing.…
- DORA, CoARA, and the Hong Kong Principles: the responsible-assessment lineage
From DORA (2012) to CoARA (2022) to UKRI’s 2024 R4RI mandate: the slow institutional turn against the impact factor and toward narrative CVs.…
