Scientific publishing is a staggeringly profitable industry. Billions are made each year producing journals and sharing academic articles around the world. The industry has been called perverse, bizarre, exploitative and that it should be seen as a public scandal. We need to make active steps toward dismantling this publishing culture which surrounds science like some kind of organism.
More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the ‘greed’ of the publisher. Ian Sample speaks to correspondent Hannah Devlin about the remarkably lucrative business of scientific publishing, hears from Prof Chris Chambers about what was behind the recent mass resignation, and finds out why researchers are demanding change. Help support our independent journalism at
theguardian.com/sciencepod