Twenty years of the Open Access movement: A retrospective study on the relationship between publishing strategies and scientific capital of Brazilian researchers in biological science

Abstract

In this study, we aim to investigate the publishing strategies adopted by the Brazilian scientific community, and how it is related with the researchers’ scientific capital. The “research productivity” grant (PQ grant) was taken as an indicator of scientific capital: the higher is the PQ grant a researcher receives the higher is his/her scientific capital. Personal data from 6,993 researchers linked to at least one Brazilian graduate program in biological sciences were obtained through the Sucupira Platform, data on articles published from 2000 to 2019 were retrieved from Lattes Platform and DOAJ was considered to classify articles as OA. Our main findings indicate that subscription-based journals are the most prevalent publishing strategy, but the proportion of OA publications is increasing over time, mainly with APC. We also observed that the lower is the level of PQ grant, the higher is the share of articles in OA journals. Finally, we observed a growing trend in the percentage of researchers with high and mid-high adherence to OA from all levels of PQ grant, but mainly with APC. Mapping the dynamics of publishing strategies can play an important step towards driving policies oriented to the promotion of OA. Peer Review https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1162/qss_a_00308