Article processing charge expenditure in Chile: The current situation

Abstract

The National Agency of Research and Development from Chile is proposing, for the first time, a national OA policy aiming to ensure access to the scientific knowledge contained in publications resulting from research projects and graduate thesis. Since no information regarding APC expenditure in Chile is available, this study examined the cost of APC for the 2019 publications that included at least one Chilean affiliation. The total expenditure for the year 2019 was estimated at USD 9,129,939. The results confirm that almost one third of the total APC was spent on publications from Health & Medical Sciences, research area with the highest APC (USD 6000). Furthermore, five commercial publishers collected 52% of the total APC expenditure. Unfortunately, the cost of publishing in some journals is so high that it causes detrimental effects on the research capacity of under resourced individuals. In the Chilean scenario, APC is not well suited to scale as most universities do not have an OA budget to support researchers that are eager to publish their work in OA journals. Perhaps the implementation of an OA policy ought to be accompanied by sustainable APC funding grants aimed at supporting under resourced researchers that want to make their research freely available.

Attitudes, willingness, and resources to cover article publishing charges: The influence of age, position, income level country, discipline and open access habits

“…This rejection of APCs from lower income countries might be related to the scarcity of economic capital or external funds that damages the trajectories of scholars from non‐Western countries (Goyanes & Demeter, 2021). Krauskopf (2021) studies the case of Chile, pointing out that the structural trend of lacking grants and funds stops researchers from being able to publish in high‐impact, APC charging journals. Thus, this may explain why scientists from such countries might see APCs and the Gold OA model as another, heavier, burden, especially as some studies point out that up to 60% of the researchers in low‐income countries have to pay the APC by themselves (Nobes & Harris, 2021).…”

Costo de los cargos por procesamiento de artículo (APC) para Uruguay: el precio desmedido del acceso abierto

“…La aproximación utilizada en este trabajo presenta fortalezas, pero posee también evidentes limitaciones que deben ser consideradas. Cabe señalar que muchas de estas limitaciones son comunes a otros trabajos que se han propuesto objetivos similares, como un reciente estudio que procuró estimar el costo por concepto de APC para un país como Chile (Krauskopf, 2021).…”

“…Los costos aquí estimados son muy inferiores a lo reportado por un reciente estudio chileno, que estimó un gasto de más de 9 millones de dólares por concepto de APC para 2019 (Krauskopf, 2021). La diferencia posiblemente responda al esfuerzo aquí realizado por distinguir entre publicaciones realizadas en colaboración y aquellas en las que el pago de APC corresponde a los autores nacionales.…”

El proyecto de ciencia abierta en un mundo desigual

“…Los nuevos acuerdos bibliotecarios por cifras millonarias (Read & Publish) sólo son viables para países e instituciones que pueden pagar esos convenios como alternativa al pago individual del APC (article processing charge). Ya hay estudios que miden cuantitativamente lo que significa este gasto en países latinoamericanos como Colombia, Argentina, Brasil y Chile y certifican su tendencia a la suba (Pavan y Barbosa, 2018;Vélez Cuartas et al, 2020;Krauskopf, 2021;. Ya ha sido señalado que este camino profundiza la mercantilización de la ciencia y proyecta nuevas desigualdades entre países hegemónicos y no hegemónicos (Debat y Babini, 2019).…”