On shifting sands: assessing the financial sustainability of UK learned societies

Johnson, Rob; Fosci, Mattia

doi:10.1087/20150406

Cited by 15 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 4 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…In year 2015, 279 of almost 600 learned societies in the UK published peer‐reviewed conference proceedings or scientific journals. Their publishing revenues were about £318 million, which constituted 26% of their total income (Johnson & Fosci, ; UUK, , pp. 65–66).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of learned societies in national scholarly publishing

et al. 2020

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This study examines the role of learned societies as publishers in Finland based on bibliographic information from two Finnish databases. We studied the share of learned societies' peer-reviewed publication channels (serials with ISSNs and book publishers with distinct ISBN roots) and outputs (journal articles, conference articles, book articles, and monographs) in Finland. We also studied the share of learned societies' open access (OA) publications. In 2018, there were 402 peer-reviewed publication channels in Finland. In 2011-2017, the number of peer-reviewed publications from scholars working in Finnish universities and published in Finland was 17,724. Learned societies publish around 70% of these channels and publications, mostly in the fields of humanities and social sciences.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of learned societies in national scholarly publishing

et al. 2020

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“…It is important to acknowledge that the initial growth of academic journals is in many ways the direct result of efforts by the learned societies that own them (Peters et al ., ). According to Johnson and Fosci (), society members can gain access to advanced knowledge in their respective fields by receiving the free subscription of their society's journals. Another often overlooked benefit of publishing for learned societies is that the net income tends to be invested in public goods such as supporting the subject community, promoting public education, and so on.…”

Section: The Existential Crisis Of Society Publishingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plan S, self‐publishing, and addressing unreasonable risks of society publishing

Vuong

2020

Learned Publishing

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Societies face increasing pressure to contain costs and retain revenues, which are threatened by open access mandates. Funders and other science publishing campaigns need to recognize the value of learned societies and work with them to sustain the production of quality knowledge. Self‐publishing via preprint servers may threaten the quality of academic research. Societies can reinforce their value proposition through a model of academic entrepreneurship, including research activities, media engagement, and consultancy.

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“…Former studies have shown that scholarly societies can become dependent on subscription revenues and explained the risks that transitioning to OA can pose for the societies' financial stability [101,102]. The largest income source is membership subscriptions, followed by publishing, and conferences [102].…”

Section: Society Journals and Publishing Partnershipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The largest income source is membership subscriptions, followed by publishing, and conferences [102]. Johnson and Fosci [101] observed that most societies prefer outsourcing the publishing activities to a publishing house-only 67 of 279 U.K.-based societies published in-house-and attribute this in part to the pressures of market consolidation, which impede smaller society publishers from competing on a level playing field. Through publishing partnerships, societies gain access to technical infrastructure and marketing resources, but are also subject to the publisher's policies and regulations.…”

Section: Society Journals and Publishing Partnershipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Two-Way Street of Open Access Journal Publishing: Flip It and Reverse It

2019

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As Open access (OA) is often perceived as the end goal of scholarly publishing, much research has focused on flipping subscription journals to an OA model. Focusing on what can happen after the presumed finish line, this study identifies journals that have converted from OA to a subscription model, and places these "reverse flips" within the greater context of scholarly publishing. In particular, we examine specific journal descriptors, such as access mode, publisher, subject area, society affiliation, article volume, and citation metrics, to deepen our understanding of reverse flips. Our results show that at least 152 actively publishing journals have reverse-flipped since 2005, suggesting that this phenomenon does not constitute merely a few marginal outliers, but instead a common pattern within scholarly publishing. Notably, we found that 62% of reverse flips (N = 95) had not been born-OA journals, but had been founded as subscription journals, and hence have experienced a three-stage transformation from closed to open to closed. We argue that reverse flips present a unique perspective on OA, and that further research would greatly benefit from enhanced data and tools for identifying such cases.

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On shifting sands: assessing the financial sustainability of UK learned societies

Abstract: ABSTRACT. This article provides a quantitative

Cited by 15 publications

References 4 publications

The role of learned societies in national scholarly publishing

The role of learned societies in national scholarly publishing

Plan S, self‐publishing, and addressing unreasonable risks of society publishing

The Two-Way Street of Open Access Journal Publishing: Flip It and Reverse It

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