The current state of global contribution to open access publishing in neurosurgery: A bibliometric analysis

Neurosurgical challenges of open access publishing in LMICs

“…Open access (OA) has emerged as a metamorphic force that is breaking down the walls of restriction to provide unimpeded access to scholarly research online to people around the globe at no cost. It not only disseminates knowledge to a much wider audience but also boosts visibility, transparency, citations, and quality assurance as its unrestricted access opens it to be critically assessed by a wider public 1 . Evidence-based learning and care are particularly critical in the field of neurosurgery, and neurosurgical research has paved the way for enhanced patient care 2 .…”

“…Scientific and multidisciplinary research plays a crucial role in global neurosurgical services by characterizing the local liability imposed by neurosurgical diseases and formulating strategies to assess and tackle this burden 3 . Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) are already burdened with a lack of funding and resources for carrying out viable research, which creates many difficulties for aspiring researchers and authors to be able to materialize their research 1 . LMIC researchers who overcome the initial challenges of inadequate research resources within their institutions encounter subsequent financial hurdles in OA publishing in the form of high article processing charges (APC), compelling them to turn to traditional journals with limited access.…”

Open-Access Journals can pave access to Global Neurosurgery

“…Open-access (OA) publishing refers to scholarly research content that is available online to anyone, anywhere free of charge ( Koester et al., 2023 ) This is an excellent way to disseminate scientific information among researchers, offering freedom of knowledge. However, this OA seems incomplete as knowledge from all corners of the globe is not disseminated alike in the present format.…”

“…A very recent interesting study analyzed the neurosurgery-related publications in the last 5 years and exposed the shocking discrepancy in publishing scholarly articles worldwide between authors from HIC and LMIC in PMOA journals. It is very dismaying to find that the authors from LMIC, the regions which harbor the most of the global bulk of neurosurgical patients, are represented the least in the PMOA journals ( Koester et al., 2023 ; Paradie et al., 2022 ).…”

“…The harsh reality of the shocking fact that the bulk of both the overall publications (78.1%) and publications with article processing charge (APC) (81.0%) from the HIC in contrast to merely around 7.5% of overall and less than 5% of publications with APC from LMIC is frustrating. The discontents enhance further by the disparate finding of neurosurgical cases: publication volume ratio of 25231.26 for LMIC versus the pleasant ratio of 558.24 for HIC ( Koester et al., 2023 ) One of the most important reasons for the discrepancy is the APC imposed on the authors by the publishers. The high burden of cannot be afforded by most of the LMIC authors individually; most of them also do not get adequate funding for publications from their institutions.…”